Pretty Broken Things
by TheConstantDrumming
Summary: Kurt and Blaine grew up in the same abusive foster home. After a time, they get separated. Kurt gets adopted by a loving family while Blaine remains in foster care being bounced from one bad home to the next. Eventually Blaine ends up at a Home in Lima and attends McKinley where he re-meets Kurt. Klaine. Rated T because i'm not sure how graphic this will get.
1. Prologue

**Summary: **(Prompt Fill) Blaine and Kurt grew up in the same abusive foster home. One day the boys are transferred and separated. Kurt gets adopted by a loving family while Blaine remains in the foster system, bouncing from one bad home to the next. One day Blaine ends up in a home in Lima and attends McKinley where he re-meets Kurt.  
**Pairing:** Klaine  
**Warnings**: Abuse, Foster care, mentions of violence

**Prologue (part 1/?)**

_Kurt sat in the far corner of the dark room, hands over his ears in an attempt to block out the loud, relentless banging at the door. Mr. Simmons was angry. Kurt wasn't sure why, but he knew that he was. If his hands weren't already occupied with trying to block out the terrifying noise, they might be rubbing at the bruise on his cheek that proved it. He was crying loudly, shaking from fear and the force of his sobs. Kurt had never been hit before. Even when he was really bad, his parents had never hit him. But he wasn't with his parents now. He would never be with them again. And Mr. Simmons was nothing like his mommy and daddy._

_After the blow, Kurt hadn't known what to do. All he knew what that he needed to get away. He'd been so shocked and frightened that he'd run straight into the first bedroom he could find, not caring who it belonged to or who might be inside. He had locked the door, but it didn't seem like the wood could hold back the giant man behind it. It bulged and shook with every pound, and Kurt felt the weight of each blow the on the door in his bones. He cried harder._

_"Shhh," a voice shushed from Kurt's left, making him jump, his eyes darting up to focus on the voice's owner. Another boy, about Kurt's age, was crouching beside him. The boy's face was pale, but his eyes were soft. There was an extra loud bang and the door shuddered violently, threatening to come free of its hinges. Kurt cried out in fear, but the boy beside him barely flinched._

_"Shhh," the boy repeated, holding a finger up to his lips. Kurt shut his mouth and tried to quiet himself. The banging didn't stop. The boy grabbed Kurt's wrist gently and tugged, motioning for Kurt to follow him as he moved towards the other side of the room. Kurt shook his head violently, too afraid to move. He whimpered, but the boy held a finger up to his lips and tugged Kurt's arm softly._

_"It's okay," he breathed, so quietly Kurt almost didn't hear him. Kurt wanted to refuse again, but the boy held his gaze unfalteringly. He looked so calm, almost as though he couldn't hear the man trying to bash in the door only a few paces away. Only the tension in his shoulders betrayed him. But his eyes, his eyes were so calm and gentle Kurt couldn't help but trust him. So when the boy motioned to start moving again, Kurt nodded. He followed the boy as he began crawling almost soundlessly across the room. Kurt was clumsier, his shaky body making his steps less sure, even on all fours. Still Kurt followed the boy, almost desperately._

_When they reached the opposite wall, Kurt's eyes settled on a wooden door. A closet. Kurt had been too frightened to notice it before. The boy stood up cautiously and pulled the door open, nodding for Kurt to enter. Kurt didn't hesitate to scurry inside. The boy followed hardly a moment after, closing the door quietly behind him._

_"If you just stay quiet, he'll lose interest," the boy said as he turned towards Kurt, sidling down to sit across from him, his back against the door. "Don't worry. He'll give up soon."_

_"What if the door doesn't hold him?" Kurt's voice was no more than a whisper that caught in his throat. The boy smiled a little and shook his head._

_"It's a good door," he said confidently. "It can hold anything."_

_As if on cue, the banging on the door stopped as abruptly as it had begun. There was a moment of silence, and the boy stared at the door as though he was trying to see through it. He seemed to be holding his breath, listening. Noisy footsteps made their way back down the hall,and the boy let out the breath he'd been holding. _

_"See," the boy grinned but his voice never left a whisper as he turned back to face Kurt. "What'd I tell ya'?" Kurt couldn't help but smile back._

_"I'm Blaine," The boy said, extending a small, skinny hand towards the pale boy across from him._

_"My name's Kurt," his name burned his raw throat on its way out, but he took Blaine's outstretched hand in his own shaky grasp. Then, as if the friendly contact had been some sort of trigger, all the fear and uncertainty and sorrow of the past few days crushed down on Kurt, and he began crying again. The smile on Blaine's face melted into concern._

_"Hey," Blaine crooned softly. "Hey, Kurt." Kurt didn't answer, opting to press the heels of his palms into his eyes and cry harder. Then Blaine's arm was around his shoulders, hugging Kurt into the his thin side. Kurt turned his head into Blaine's shoulder, accepting the comfort and dampening Blaine's plain white t-shirt with tears. No one said anything for some time, Blaine just held Kurt as he cried. When Kurt's tears subsided, Blaine started talking._

_"How old are you now, Kurt?" Blaine asked, his voice hushed and gentle._

_"Six," Kurt sniffed out, rubbing at his red eyes._

_"Hey, me too!" Blaine declared softly, a grin gracing his face. "Have you been six very long? I just turned six on Tuesday. What about you?"_

_"I've been six since a long time ago," Kurt answered, his voice still shaky from crying._

_"That makes you older than me!" Blaine continued. "That's kind of funny isn't it? We're both six, but you're an older six and I'm a younger six." Kurt smiled._

_"Have you ever flown a kite?" When Kurt nodded, Blaine grinned. "I used to live next door to this kid who flew them all the time. I tried to make my own out of paper and sticks, but it didn't fly. So one day the kid saw me trying to fly my pretend kite, and when it didn't work, he let me fly his. It was a good kite, I think, all red with yellow and it looked like a dragon. I like dragons. Do you-"_  
_Blaine carried on like that for a long while, asking Kurt simple questions and filling the quiet closet with useless chatter. He never asked Kurt anything too personal, never actually said anything important. He simply chased away the silence with his soft voice until Kurt fell asleep beside him._


	2. Chapter 1

"Kurt, honey, hurry up! You don't want to be late for school," Carole's voice floated up the stairs and into Kurt's room.

"Coming!" Kurt called before turning back to the full length mirror in front of him. He turned this way and that, making sure his outfit fell and clung in all the right places. He needed everything to look perfect. This may have been his fourth year at McKinley, but this was his first day as a _senior_, and Kurt wanted to make a good impression.

"Kurt-" Carole's voice was closer now, more clear. Kurt turned to find her standing in the open doorway of his bedroom. She clicked her tongue once, the mild irritation on her face slipping into a warm smile as she looked at her son from across the room. "Let me look at you."

Kurt crossed the room towards the woman he had learned to call Mom. She laid her handson his shoulders in a motherly gesture that was so familiar to Kurt now, her soft eyes examining every inch of him with loving scrutiny.

"You look great, baby," she said and Kurt smiled. "This outfit is absolutely perfect for your first day."

"_Mom,_" Kurt huffed as though he hadn't been thinking the same thing only moments before. "I've been going to McKinley for three years now, it's not exactly a 'first day.'"

"I know," Carole agreed, rubbing her son's shoulders gently. "But it is your first day as a senior. My gosh, when did you get so old?"

"You blinked," Kurt informed her with a smile. Carole laughed.

"I guess so," she chuckled, squeezing Kurt's arms gently. "Now get downstairs or you're going to be late. Finn's already in the car." Kurt nodded, ducking around Carole to grab his shoulder bag before hurrying down the stairs and out the front door.

"Dude, what took you so long?" Finnquestioned angrily as Kurt clambered into the car, slamming the door shut behind himself. Finn started up the engine and began pulling out of the driveway. "We are so going to be late."

"No we are not, Finn," Kurt said definitively, rolling his eyes at the boy who was, for all intents and purposes, his brother. "We're just going to have to hurry a little- God! Would you slow down!"

"_You_ said we needed to hurry!" Finn countered as the car raced down the thankfully straight stretch of road.

"I meant once we got to school- we'll have to run to class, not run every stop sign along the way!"

"Sorry," Finn apologized half-heartedly, slowing down a bit. Kurt didn't fail to notice that the speedometer never dropped below forty, despite the fact that they were in a school zone.  
"You're going to be the death of us all, Finn Hudson."

The car settled into a comfortable silence after that, and Kurt stared out the window to keep his mind off the speedometer which continued to climb closer to fifty every time Kurt glanced at it. He was determined not to think about it, lest the stress of it kill him off before Finn managed to. Instead, he thought about school. He was still having a hard time processing the fact that this was his last year at McKinley High. He was a _senior_ now. In only a few months time he'd be graduated with a whole future ahead of him and a family to support him.

The Hudson-Hummels had adopted Kurt just after his ninth birthday. They were already a makeshift family when Kurt joined the mix. Finn had been five when Carole met Burt. The two adults fell in love almost instantly and were married after about a year of dating and a short engagement. They both had wanted another child and tried for two years to get pregnant, but nothing worked. The doctors couldn't explain why. Medically both Carole and Burt should have been able to concieve, but it just wouldn't happen. After the two year mark, Carole had brought up the idea of adoption and Burt had been all for it. They filled outstacks of paperwork and talked to all the right people, and a few months later a social worker was introducing the Hudson-Hummel family to a small, wide-eyed Kurt. They met with a few other kids, but Kurt had grabbed Burt's heart from the first moment with an intensity that Burt still struggled to explain to his family years later. Thirteen scheduled meetings and about four weeks of paperwork later, Kurt was officially a member of the Hudson-Hummel family.

The sight of his high school building tugged Kurt out of his revery.

"And with two minutes to spare!" Finn declared proudly as he pulled into an open parking space. He opened his door and hopped out of the old truck he'd received as a birthday present the previous year.

"You should just be glad we're not dead," Kurt jeered, but the smile on his face betrayed his mocking tone. Finn grinned in response before shouldering his backpack and heading towards the school building. Kurt slammed his own door closed and followed after his brother.

The parking lot was mainly empty. Only a few students loitered around their cars, their laughs echoed through the lot, heavy with the underlying desperation of those who had already given up the hope of a future.

The sprint bell rang just as Kurt was pulling the front doors of the school open. Inside the building, the halls were alive with students excitedly chatting by their lockers, comparing schedules and summer tans as they headed towards their first period classrooms. Kurt breathed in the stench of disinfectant, body odor, and overdone perfume that was already permeating the school and smiled.

"Kurt!" A high pitched, but familiar squeal sounded through the hallway, and Kurt looked up to see none other than Rachel Berry bounding down the hallway towards him, a goofy grin spread across her face. He sighed. Rachel might be his best friend, but she was also the most high maintenance person he knew. He was sure she had a _lot_ to tell him, and wasn't sure he had enough time before the late bell rang to hear it all.

"Hey there gorgeous." She linked arms with Kurt, a grin spreading across her face that told Kurt she knew something he didn't.

"Hey yourself." Hegrinned, treasuring the way her warmth beside him made the crowded hallways suddenly less lonely. He hadn't actually noticed he'd felt lonely until exactly that moment- the moment when he felt whole again. _You can't miss something you never had,_ the thought rolled through his mind. Someone had told him that once, a long time ago, but he couldn't put a name or a face to the phrase.

"_Kurt_," Rachel's voice tugged him out of his thoughts, "are you even listening to me? Gosh, where are you today?"

Kurt shook his head, filing the thought away as unimportant. He could think about that later. He smiled at Rachel apologetically.

"Sorry, I'm just really out of it today," he told her.

"It's the first day back at school, Kurt," Rachel pointed out, as if he had somehow forgotten. "You should at least wait a week before tuning the whole thing out." Kurt rolled his eyes.

"Whatever," he countered, rolling his eyes in mild annoyance. "Why don't you just tell me whatever it is you have to say before you explode?" He could feel the excited tension in the way Rachel's arm wound itself around his own just a little too tightly.

"Well, I was _trying to_," Rachel complained, "but someone wasn't listening."

"Well I'mlistening now," Kurt turned his face towards her as if to prove his interest, "so spill."

Rachel's irritation cracked and a knowing, eager grin spread across her face. Her eyes danced conspiratorially, and Kurt felt his chest tighten with a sudden excitement as she opened her mouth to speak.

"We've got a new transfer student," she all but tripped over her own words in her rush to get them out into the air, "and he is ten-out-of-ten, drop-dead gorgeous."

"Lust worthy?" Kurt asked, finally getting interested. Other than the mild flow of freshmen, there hadn't been any new meat in McKinley for a while.

"Definitely." Rachel nodded, looking encouraged, if not completely satisfied, by Kurt's sudden attention. "And you'll never believe what i found out about him. I saw him the counseling office when I went in to complain to Principal Figgins about my current class schedule. Did you know they tried to make me take general PE with the sophomores instead of putting me into advanced dance? Excuse me, but I have a dream to fulfill. Do you think that 'General Physical Education' is going to help me get into NYADA? On Broadway? I don't think so. I-"

"Rachel," Kurt interrupted patiently, "new guy- drop dead gorgeous. Remember?"

"Oh. Right, yeah." Rachel blinked a few times, pulling her mind back onto topic. "Anyway, i was here early, and I saw him sitting in one of the chairs outside of the office- the ones that are still in the hallway, not in that little middle room. I think he caught me staring, so I just headed straight inside the office. I couldn't stop to talk to him, I was on a mission- plus I have Finn to think about."

"And?" Kurt questioned before Rachel could get sidetracked talking about Finn. "What did you find out?" Rachel shot him an annoyed look.

"I was getting there," she told him. Her annoyance didn't last long, however, and after a beat she was talking excitedly again. "So I was in the counseling office, waiting for Principal Figgins to stop talking to someone's parents. They looked really mad- the parents, not Principal Figgins- so Ifigured I was going to have to wait a while so Itook a seat outside of the office and sort of- okay, I'll admit it, I was staring at the back of this boy's head. He's got this curly hair, which I usually don't like in boys, but it totally worked on him, Kurt, and I've never seen anyone sit so straight or so still-"

"Rachel!" Kurt sighed, exasperated.

"Fine! I was sitting there and Ioverheard- I swear I didn't mean to, but I _overheard_ the ladies who work behind the desk talking. One of them said 'He's going to be a challenge.' It took me a minute to realize that they were talking about the boy outside because there was _no way_ I would have thought they were talking about him. He looked like the exact opposite of trouble, though his outfit could have used some serious help. But they were, for sure- talking about him, imean. Anyway, the other lady asked her why she thought so. Apparently the new kid's a _foster_ kid. Has been for a while now. I don't know how long. Probably years judging by how the ladies were talking about him. I- hey, weren't you a foster kid, Kurt? Oh my gosh, Kurt, I'm sorry-" she stopped as though she had just realized how casually she was talking about a subject that was probably a sensitive topic for Kurt.

"It's fine," Kurt assured her, not even flinching. Those days were behind him now. He had no problem talking about the System now. Or at least that's what he told himself.

"I wonder if you know him," Rachel mused aloud, the hesitancy of the moment before was gone from her tone.

"Rachel, I haven't even _seen_ another foster kid since I was nine. I don't even really remember anything about being in the system. Best not to think about it, you know?"

Rachel nodded, her face solemn like this made perfect sense, though Kurt was sure she'd never had a day in her life really worth blocking from her memory. Kurt knew that wasn't fair. Rachel had her own problems, just like everyone else. Still, Kurt couldn't help but think that, in light of everything he'd seen, everything he'd chosen to forget about those two and a half years in the System, she really didn't know much of anything.

All at once, Kurt didn't want to meet this new guy. He didn't care how hot he was or what clothes he was wearing or any of that. He didn't want to know where he was from or where he was going. He didn't even want to seethis boy in the hallways. He had the sudden, selfish, ridiculous desire for the boy to be transferred to a new home before the end of the day. Because some things were meant to stay in the past. Kurt was out of the System. He has been out of the System for nine years. It wasn't allowed to come back for him now, not here. Kurt was safe here. He needed this boy gone.

-

If there was one place Blaine did not want to be, it was sitting outside of another principal's office in the halls of another new school. If there was one thing Blaine hadn't wanted to do, it was to move homes again. He had actually been _happy_ at the last one. He'd lived there for just over a year, and it had been one of the best years of his life. The woman, Sarah, had been kind- loving even. She'd forgiven him quickly the one time he'd slipped up and accidentally called her mom. The man, Kenneth, was funny and patient. He never hit or even raised his voice, no matter how angry he became. And Blaine had worked hard to never give him a reason to change that. He'd had his own room, food on the table every night, people who cared if he came home late. Yes, Blaine had been happy living with the Townings.

But then Sarah had gotten sick and they just couldn't afford to keep Blaine anymore, even with the financial aid from the government. They'd tried, but when Sarah's health took a turn for the worse, social services intervened and Blaine was whisked away. Again.

That was two months ago. Well, sixty-six-and-a-quarter days if anyone was counting. And Blaine was counting. Blaine was always counting- it kept him sane, gave him a sense of control. He couldn't hold on to any particular family or friend or school, but he could hold on to time. It was the one thing that never changed. Twenty-four hours in a day, sixty minutes in an hour, sixty seconds in a minute. Time didn't change.

But everything else did.

Blaine had been able to tell from the moment the front door had been opened that this homewas not going to be like the Townings. Not that he'd expected to get so lucky twice in a row. If his social worker, Carrie, could feel it too, she showed no indication. She had trudged directly up to the door, Blaine following behind her, trying to hide his hesitancy behind a composed stature. He clasped hishands politely behind his back once he reached Carrie's side at the door, squaring his shoulders as best he could, and tried to ignore the nervous lump in his throat that was threatening to cut off his air supply.

_Just don't give them a reason, Blaine_, he had told himself, as he always did. _Be quiet, be still, don't give them a reason__**, **__and they won't hurt you. _Blaine knew it was a lie- people rarely needed any actual reason to hurt him. But it was his best protection. _Stay still- they won't see you, so they can't hurt you._

Then the door before them had been pulled open and Blaine had met the Dodsons. Terri Dodson was thin and short. She had been sweet to Carrie and polite to Blaine, but nothing about it felt genuine. Carrie seemed oblivious to the woman's pretenses, but then again, she'd always been a terrible judge of character. Blaine didn't see Terri as being any terrible danger, though. He figured she would probably just ignore him, which he could handle. Being ignored was nothing. Blaine was used to being ignored.

The man of the house, George Dodson, posed more of a physical threat. He was a big man. He wasn't much taller than Blaine, but he was wide with heavy arms and thick hands and a beer belly he covered with a mostly clean sports jersey. Blaine could feel his whole body ache with tension as he plastered on a smile and shook his new foster father's hand. He didn't know what to make of Mr. Dodson just yet, but he was certain life here wasn't about to be puppies and sunshine.

He had been right.

Mr. Dodson hadn't hit Blaine yet, but the teen guessed it was only a matter of time with the man's temper. Blaine had gotten too comfortable at the Townings and had succumbed to too many bad habits. He had to keep reminding himself to stay still, stay silent, stay out of sight. He knew from experience just what kind of man George Dodson was, and even though the worst he'd done so far was throw insults and poorly aimed objects, Blaine knew he was only one bad mistake awayfrom the wrong end of Mr. Dodson's fist.

There was a part of him wished his new foster father would just get it over with already. Blaine liked knowing where he stood, what topics to avoid, what rules to follow. But usually that only came from trial and error. There was no guidebook on how to survive in the System. The details varied so vastly from home to home**.** There was never any room for certainty. There were, however, basic guidelines that every foster kid knew. Unspoken rules that spelled out how to survive.

From a young age he'd mastered the art of still, the art of silent. Because rule number two of the System was "_No one that cares can hear you, and no one that can hear you cares_." And even if someone could hear you, well, _that_ was rule number one: "_No one can know_." If home was hell, the only thing for a foster kid to do was to lie and pretend it wasn't. If anyone found out, that kid would be bounced- shipped off to a new home. There were those who thought that was a better alternative.

"At least you'll be getting out of the home you're in now," they wouldsay. "There's always a chance the next place will be better."

Which was true, Blaine knew. But there was also a chance the next home could be so much worse.

No. Still and silent was better. Take whatever your guardians dish out, because at least you know where you stand. At least you know what's going to happen. Once you get bounced, you have to start all over again. It was a new game with new rules andnew forms of hell, and no way of knowing how anything worked. It all became a guessing game, and Blaine hated guessing.

An angry couple walked out of the office behind him, still arguing loudly. Their sudden arrival made Blaine jump, yanking him out of his thoughts. He tried to play off his flinch as best he could, but it didn't seem to matter. The couple wasn't looking at him anyway, and somewhere between his arrival and that moment, the students had all cleared the hallway. Blaine hadn't even noticed the bell ringing, he had been so caught up in his thoughts. Silently, Blaine scolded himself. He had a problem with letting his thoughts run away with him, another bad habit he'd picked up while living with the Townings. That was dangerous. He needed to work on that.

"Blaine Anderson?" Blaine's eyes shot up in surprise to find the speaker, a woman in her mid-forties standing at the doorway to the office. He covered his momentary shock with a classic Blaine Anderson smile. He'd been practicing it for years, perfecting it. Rule number one.

"Yes ma'am, that's me," Blaine rose from his seat respectfully, his hands at his sides.

"Well, Principal Figgins wants to see you now," she informed him, eyeing him up and down with a judgemental scrutiny that made Blaine feel more than a little bit uncomfortable, even though he was used to it. Of course she would know where he was from, what he was. Those kinds of stares followed him everywhere. That didn't make them easier to handle. But he smiled at her anyway.

"Thank you, ma'am," he said, walking past her when she gestured for him to go inside. He walked across the small waiting area, reaching the glass door which had PRINCIPAL FIGGINS inscribed across it in black letters. He opened the door incrementally, knocked politely, and waited for permission to enter.

"Come in new pupil." The man behind the desk, who Blaine has presumed to be Principal Figgins had a blunt, straightforward way of speaking that put Blaine on edge and made him want to turn and run. But Blaine was never one to deny an order. He walked into the room and stood a respectful distance from the desk.

"Sit," theman instructed in the same oddly direct manner.

"Yessir," Blaine replied before reluctantly taking his seat. Blaine didn't like sitting. He didn't like being alone in small enclosed spaces with other people. Especially not with people he didn't know. It was that guessing game all over again. He didn't like not knowing how he should react or what he should say or what the man in front of him would do. He didn't like feeling like he couldn't run. It made him jumpy and nervous.. More than anything, Blaine just wanted out of that room, or at least out of the chair. He wanted to pace and scream and run for his life and get the hell out of this town.

But he didn't.

Because Principal Figgins told him to sit, so Blaine would sit. He would sit and be calm and polite and still. Everything would be okay, he knew, if he could just sit still. His hands betrayed him, twitching with all of his nervous energy.

"You are Blaine Anderson, correct?" Figgins asked, glancing up from what Blaine assumed was his personal file, his eyes falling onthe teen. Blaine nodded.

"Yessir."

"And you are a junior here at McKinley now, are you not?" Principal Figginsstudied Blaine's face intently, making Blaine feel all the more uncomfortable. A muscle in his jaw jumped, but he managed to smiled politely.

"Yessir," Blaine affirmed.

"We don't want any trouble here, is that understood, Mr. Anderson? We have to keep our students here feeling comfortable. There can be no hooliganism." Of course he would assume Blaine meant trouble. He was a foster kid, and everyone knew what that meant. It wasn't the man's fault, Blaine reminded himself. With the number of homes Blaine had been to, it was probably easy to assume Blaine meant trouble. The file given to the school showed the numbers, the figures, but never the reasons. Maybe that was for the better. Still, Blaine hadn't been at McKinley for more than forty-five minutes,and already everyone assumed he was trouble. Typical. Blaine felt his jaw tighten.

"Yessir, understood." He nodded briefly. "No trouble."

"Alright," Principal Figgins said after a moment. "Here is your class schedule. You can ask Mrs. Kindle or Ms. Taylors at the desk if you have any questions." He held out a small white sheet of paper, and Blaine took it gingerly before standing. He gave the principal an appreciative smile.

"Thank you sir," Blaine said agreeably. When he didn't move to leave, Figgins raised an eyebrow.

"You may go," he told Blaine, and the teen nodded before heading to the door. Blaine was just about to pull the metal handle when the principal's voice stopped him.

"I don't expect to see you here again, Mr. Anderson." Blaine flinched- he hadn't been expecting any further comments. He chided himself over the slip. He really needed to be better about that- to relax,and not be so on edge. He couldn't risk someone noticing. Blaine turned to smile at Figgins.

"Of course not, Sir," Blaine assured him politely. "No trouble, remember?"

The principal simply nodded and Blaine took that as his cue to leave. He nodded respectfully at the women at the desk before dropping his eyes down to his schedule. He could feel the secretaries' eyes on him, making him feel small and jumpy. He just hoped that word of who he was- _what_ he was- hadn't spread around school already. Blaine didn't think he could handle all those stares, all the questions that would no doubt follow. Just thinking about it made Blaine's pulse race, so he blocked the thought from his mind. He would get through this day the same way he got through every other one, he told himself. He would be quiet, he would be still, and he would focus on one class at a time.

He just hoped people would leave him alone.


	3. Chapter 2

The first few weeks at McKinley passed uneventfully for Blaine, and he was grateful for that. Now, his third Friday was quickly coming to a close, and, other than an odd instance involving some jocks and a colorful array of slushies, the McKinley population had left Blaine mostly to himself. The slushie incident had been a new experience for Blaine. He had been bullied before, of course. He was an out, gay, teenage boy in the foster care system. If there was an easier target for bullying, Blaine had never heard of it. So, of course he had been bullied. He'd been hit, punched, yelled at, andkicked around, but no one had ever thrown a slushie in his face before. It was incredibly difficult to get out of hair, he had quickly discovered, and it stained shirts beyond salvaging. That was the worst of it, really. Blaine wasn't particularly vain when it came to clothing, but he didn't exactly have shirts to spare either. He only owned so many. He couldn't bring himself to waste the ruined tee, and so he had kept it to wear around the house on the weekends, or when everything else he owned was dirty.

Still, with the exception of his ruined shirt, things were going much better than he had expected. People left Blaine alone, looking away when he caught them staring and keeping their whispers low. Even when he had walked around the whole day with blueberry slushie staining his shirt and matting his hair, his classmates had not interfered. Few people had approached him at all, to be honest, and those who had were easy enough to dismiss with a few polite words. Blaine was grateful for their distance. He was lonely, sure, but being lonely beat the hell out of making friends just to have them ripped away again. He had let his guard down with the Townings- made friends, gotten comfortable, been happy. And he had been crushed when it was all stripped away. No. He was better off alone- safer.

An odd, conflicted sense of relief and despair washed over him as the final bell rang, signalingthe end of the school day and the start of the weekend. Wild cheers erupted from the students in Blaine's seventh period history class, and Blaine tensed almost imperceptibly at the sudden noise. He was getting better about his jumpiness, but it took time to relearn how to hide everything. For the hundredth time, Blaine kicked himself for getting so comfortable at his last home. He had to start all over again now, and it was hard.

Blaine rose slowly to his feet, taking his time as he put his history notes into his binder, his binder into his backpack, and his backpack over his shoulder. He may take twisted solace in his solitude, but that did not make him any more eager to leave the halls of his new high school. Mr. Dodson's temperament had not improved at all over the past few weeks. Not that Blaine had expected any change. He knew exactly what kind of man his foster father was- angry, callous, violent. He hadn't hit Blaine yet, but that only served to worsen Blaine's trepidation. Not knowing was the worst part for Blaine. He could handle the violence, the anger, the pain. But the uncertainty could strangle him.

He decided to put off returning to thathouse as long as possible and instead headed for the school gym. He had spoken to McKinley's head coach, a woman named Beiste, early on in his first week, and she had agreed to allow him to use the gym after school hours to box. He had picked up the sport towards the beginning of his freshman year after he had been dragged, kicking and screaming, out of the closet by a jealous sophomore girl only to be shoved back inside a week later, bloody and broken, by a group of ignorant football jocks. That had been Blaine's longest hospital stay. The jocks had really done their best to "beat the gay out of him," though, and they had nearly beaten the life out of him as well. He had been forced to repeat his freshman year, because he had missed so much school recovering. He took up boxing as soon as his body was able to handle it. It had started out as an effort in self defence, but over the years it had developed into a much needed outlet for Blaine.

Blaine tugged open the doors to the locker room and nodded politely at Coach Beiste who sat in her office before heading to his locker. He spun the cheap metal lock, twisting in his combination before pulling the lock off and grabbing his gym clothes. Blaine always changed in the bathroom stalls. He didn't have anything to hide just yet, and no one was around to see him even if he did,but he had learned over the years that it was best to form habits early on. If he suddenly started changing out of sight, people might ask questions.

Once he was changed, Blaine headed out of the locker room and into the weight room which housed the boxing equipment. He grabbed a pair of the school's gloves off a bench, pulling them securely over his hands, taking comfort in their weight before setting to work on the punching bag. He moved rapidly, playing out every combination he could remember in frantic succession. He was being sloppy. He knew that, but he didn't care. There was no one to fight now, no coach to reprimand him. He just needed to vent, to work the stress and fear and panic out of his system in sweat and pain and focus. He lost himself in the uniformity of the movements. His eyes focused on the bag in front of him, on his hands, until everything else disappeared. He let his mind wander, picking up the pace of his blows to pound away any unwanted thoughts or memories.

It was familiar, the mild ache in his fists, the rhythmic echo of plastic gloves pounding against fake leather. Comforting. He had missed this. He had never competed with his boxing- Blaine could never bring himself to raise a hand against another human being. It was all too familiar when there was a _person_ on the receiving end of his blows. Blaine prefered to take his frustrations out on inanimate objects**.** He told himself that that separated him from the violence of his life; that it put him above everyone who had hurt him because at least the object of his frustrations couldn't feel anything. Still, there were days when he wasn't so sure if it actually made any difference what he was hitting; days when he wondered if it wasn't all the same anyway.

Faster.

The Townings had been more than encouraging of Blaine's hobby. They had understood when

Blaine told them he didn't want to compete and even began showing up to some of his practices in place of going to meets. Most boys his age would have found it embarrassing to have their mother or father up in the bleachers chattering excitedly at a practice, but Blaine couldn't get enough of it. Until then, he had never had someone to show up to anything for him. His heart would swell at the sight of them walking through the double doors of the gym and burst under their praise when he joined them at the end of the night. He had loved them, and they had loved him back. But that was before. He didn't have that anymore; he might not ever have that again.

_Faster_.

The Townings were actually the only reason Blaine was "out-and-proud" now. Those jocks had done a thorough job his freshman year. He had remained securely closeted until thirteen months into living with the Townings. In all honesty, he had not wanted to come out at all. Being gay had brought him nothing but trouble and pain in the past, but he felt he owed his foster parents this truth. It had taken everything in him not to cry when he told them. He was usually so good about being still, about being in control, but he had felt himself shaking in his seat as he confessed. He had expected Sarah to cry; he had expected Kenneth, who had never raised a hand to the teen, to follow the pattern of Blaine's past and strike him. He had expected anger and shame and hurt. But Sarah and Kenneth hadsimply shared a look before smiling at Blaine. He had never expected that- for them to smile. And so he had cried then, and they had held him.No one said much of anything that night, but Blaine had never felt more loved. And now, after being torn from that home and moving to Lima, Blaine refused to go back into the closet. He didn't flaunt his sexuality- he was walking on thin ice as it was- but he refused to deny himself to feel what he felt. It was his only way of holding on to the Townings. His one defiance. His way of feeling close to the only family he had ever known. The only family he would ever know, most likely. And he would sooner die than give up that connection. It was all he had left.

Faster. Faster, _faster. _

By the time Blaine finally turned away from the punching bag, he was dripping in sweat. His arms hung at his sides, suddenly too tired to even consider moving. His hands ached something terrible, but he didn't mind. He plodded heavily over to the showers, stripping off his clothes to step into a stream of hot water. He turned his back to it, letting the heat soothe the tense muscles in his shoulders. He inhaled deeply, breathing in the thick steam which rose around him, and glanced around the empty shower room once before closing his eyes. Then, with the shower drumming around him like background music, Blaine began to sing.

_There's a place that i know_

_It's not pretty there and few have ever gone_

As odd as it sounded, Blaine missed singing in the shower. He missed singing at all. Sarah and Kenneth had not only tolerated his kinship with music, but had encouraged him to better himself and his voice. Blaine loved singing. He loved the way he could get lost in the feeling, the character, of a song; he way it let him be someone completely other- let him be _not _Blaine. It was the only thing that worked better than boxing to soothe him.

_And if i show it to you now_

_Will it make you run away?_

Finn had been trying to find Coach Beiste. Finn had left glee clubearly in order to talk to Beiste about football tryouts. He honestly wasn't snooping**.** Well, not initially. But then the singing started. The sound had startled him at first.Finn had thought he was alone in the locker room. From where he stood, he couldn't tell what the noise was exactly- the tiled walls echoed too much to make any sense of the sound. But Finn soon made out the sound of a shower running, and he headed across the locker room to investigate. The closer he got to the showers, the clearer the singing became- it was evident now that it was singing. Finn didn't recognize the voice, but whoever it was, they were good.

He crept closer out of benign curiosity and entered the shower room. A boy Finn didn't recognize occupied the only running shower, his clear belt easily filling the room.

_Everybody's got a dark side._

_Do you love me? Can you love mine?_

The boy didn't seem to notice Finn, though the senior made no attempt at hiding himself. In fact, the singing stranger seemed to have his eyes closed, completely blind to the world around him. Finn leaned up against a row of lockers and contented himself to listen. The kid had an incredible voice, Finn had to give him that. He hit the high notes of the song without struggle, and Finn couldn't help but think the glee club had found its missing member. _God, when did I become Mr. Schue?_ Finn wondered absently, as he waited for the song to come to a close.

_Will you love me?_

_Even with my dark side?_

As he finished the song, the boy turned off the water, wrapping a white gym towel around his waist, his back to Finn.

"Hey, that was pretty good," Finn called to him, casually crossing the distance between them. The boy practically jumped out of his skin, nearly dropping his towel in his haste to turn around. Finn got his first good look at the other boy's face, but it was wrong now. The boy's eyes were wide and panicked, his skin pale.

"Woah," Finn held up his hands in a show of peaceful surrender. "Sorry, dude. Didn't mean to scare you." But the look was already gone from the boy's face. He smiled politely at Finn, perfectly composed as he further secured the towel at his waist.

"Oh, you didn't scare me," the boy assured him with a pleasant smile. "Just startled me, is all."

"Oh, okay, that's good i guess," Finn stumbled, a bit thrown off by this stranger's rapid recovery. "I'm Finn, by the way."

"Blaine Anderson," the stranger responded. A light went on in Finn's head.

"Oh! You're the new transfer student, right?" Finn guessed, shooting Blaine a knowing grin. "News spreads fast around here." He chuckled, and Blaine smiled politely in response.

"Yeah," Blaine affirmed, "but you know i really should be getting home." He stumbled a bit over the last word, reluctanteven now to refer to that house as his home. It was a stupid mistake, one he hoped Finn wouldn't notice as he moved past him to get to his clothes. Finn let him pass, nodding in agreement, much to Blaine's relief. Blaine headed around to the other side of the lockers to get changed, the strangeness of the moment and the aching in his limbs pushing his bathroom stall routine to the wayside.

"Wait!" Finn called, bounding around the corner just as Blaine pulled a pair of old grey sweatpants up and over his boxers. He looked up, raising his eyebrows in polite expectancy. Blaine wasn't in any mood for casual conversation, but he knew better than to piss off an upperclassman- especially one twice his size. So Blaine humored him, trying his best to ignore the exhaustion that tugged at his mind and body.

"I- uh- I meant what I said before," Finn continued awkwardly, "about you sounding good."

Blaine could feel a slight blush creep into his cheeks. He wasn't good at accepting compliments. He had lived through too many years of put downs to ever feel comfortable with honest praise. Besides, he really hadn't meant for anyone to hear him. He had only started singing in the first placebecause he had thought he was alone. Uneasy embarrassment and the stress of the past few weeks melded into irritation. Tired and uncomfortable, he slipped into another bad habit he had picked up over the last year; sudden anger bubbled over his polite exterior.

"Do you spy on all the new kids while they're showering?" He asked, his tone bitter, as he slammed his locker closed. He pulled on his shirt before locking eyes with Finn. "Or am I just special?"

Finn's eyes widened at Blaine's sudden irritation.

"No- no it wasn't like that, dude," Finn backtracked. "I'm not- I mean, I didn't see any- I wasn't trying to-" Finn sighed, and he seemed to give up on explaining himself.

"Look all I meant is that we have this glee club here, and you should check it out," he concluded awkwardly. "We could really use your voice."

A breathy laugh escaped Blaine's lips, before he could stop it.

"Yeah, I- I've heard about your glee club." There was a bitterness coloring his tone. "And I think I've washed enough slushies out of my hair for a while, thanks."

He picked up his bag and moved to leave the locker room, hoping Finn would just let him go. His irritation was ebbing just as quickly as it had come, taking his casual mindset and anger with it. A familiar paranoia took its place, and all he wanted was to leave. He didn't want to be trapped alone inside that room with someone he didn't know. Someone twice his size. Blaine was pretty sure Finn wouldn't hit him- he didn't seem the kind, but he knew nothing of the older boy beyond that, and it was making him jumpy_._ He just wanted to get out of that room.. But Finn stepped into his path. Blaine froze at the close proximity, but he didn't back away. More out of habit than any real fear, Blaine's eyes scanned the room beyond Finn for possible escape routes. The door wasn't that far off. If Blaine could get past Finn, he could easily make it to the door first.. Blaine was fast. Even if Blaine had misjudged Finn and he swung at him, Blaine could easily dodge and make it to the door in time. He was sure he could. He wouldn't even need to fight.

But Finn didn't swing.

"Look, just- we're in the middle of rehearsal right now," Finn tried again. "Just come to one class- see if you like it. It can't hurt, right?"

Blaine hesitated. He had heard about the glee club. According to the hallway gossip, it was a band of outcasts with decent singing voices. They were the main target of every athlete's testosterone-filled rage and the butt of almost every joke in the McKinley High halls. Blaine did not need that kind of attention. He didn't need any kind of attention. He just needed to be left alone.

"Come on, dude, please?"

Blaine drew in a breath, weighing his options. At worst, Blaine would waste an evening. The halls were empty after the end of school. No one would see him. At best, Blaine would waste an evening. Any excuse not to head back to the Dodson's house felt like a blessing more and more every day. That was why he was still at school in the first place, wasn't it? Sure, Blaine wanted out, but he supposed he'd rather be trapped here at school than trapped at the home of his foster family. He nodded once, and Finn grinned.

"Awesome." The senior turned on his heel and began to lead the way out of the locker room and down the empty hallway toward the muffled sound of a piano.

The door to the choir room opened and closed noisily as Kurt finished he last phrase of "Blackbird." He had chosen to ignore it, figuring his step brother was returning from his talk with Coach Beiste in the gym. His fellow glee club members, however, had not been so quick to dismiss Finn's return. There wasn't the usual resounding applause at the end of Kurt's song, instead everyone's eyes were all glued to the doorway with a hungry curiosity. Kurt shifted his attention to the door in the hopes of discovering what had captivated everyone's attention so thoroughly, and felt his stomach drop. He swallowed hard. Finn cleared his throat, but Kurt knew what he was going to say before he uttered a word.

"Everyone, this is Blaine," Finn introduced. Kurt could feel the blood leave his face, a roaring in his ears blocked out Finn's voice. He knew who this boy was. Rachel had not stopped talking about him since the first day of school. This was the new kid, the foster child, the symbol of everything Kurt had worked for the last nine years to erase from his memory, and he had no right to be here. Kurt had been relieved to find the boy was in none of his classes, glad he sat nowhere near Kurt's table at lunch, overjoyed Kurt rarely saw him in between classes. He was a distant rumor in the hallways, nothing more, and Kurt had liked him that way. He had hoped this boy- Blaine- would stay out of his way, out of his life. He had begun to think that maybe he could avoid confronting him entirely. If anything he would say a polite hello should occasion force them to meet, but he had never considered anything beyond that. He had never imagined that Blaine would show up in the middle of glee, his very presence taunting Kurt with a past he only wanted to forget. Not here, not in Kurt's safe haven. Not now.

No one seemed to notice Kurt's rapid decline in sanity, or the way he had backed himself intothe far corner of the classroom to sit down. No one seemed to notice how he wrung his hands with uncharacteristic nerves, or the ragged way he had to force the air in and out of his lungs just to maintain breathing. No one noticed because they were allfocused on the source of Kurt's problems, a small, dark haired boy standing beside Finn.

Try as he might, Kurt couldn't keep himself from studying Blaine with a morbid fascination, the way an arachnophobe might stare at a spider- as though staring could keep it from coming any closer. Blaine stood with his arms hanging casually at his sides. A polite smile adorned his face as Finn introduced him to the group. At Finn's suggestion, he told the room about himself. He was a junior who had just transferred from a high school in Westerville; he gave that information up readily, but laughed and shrugged when Quinn asked him why he had transferred. He was the image of polite confidence, only the tension in his shoulder and the jumping of a muscle in his jaw betrayed any sort of anxiety. It was strange, the rimrod straightness of him, the stillness, and for a moment Kurt found himself mesmerized by the stranger, focusing on Blaine's mannerisms. The way he could go back and forth between perfect stillness and casual, conversational movement with perfect fluency.

Something tugged at the back of Kurt's mind, and he fought the memory. He used to have flashbacks all the time as a child. The past would creep up on him in his sleep or after a moment that was a little too familiar. Something would trigger him and the past would overtake his senses, drawing him back into another time and place; to his parents' car crash or a home he had been lucky to escape. His shrink had diagnosed the whole ordeal as childhood post traumatic stress disorder, and she had another name for his flashbacks, too. She had called them panic attacks, but Kurt had never liked the sound of that. It made him sound crazy, dysfunctional, broken. She had assured him many times over that it wasn't uncommon among children in his "situation," but he had never taken to the label.

In any case, Kurt had overcome that. Years of counseling had brought the memories and nightmares to a stop. He had not had a flashback in close to four years, but he could feel one now, creeping up through the cracks in his mind. It threatened to overtake him, and he was helpless to stop it. He could hear the blood rushing in his ears ashis vision tunneled. He struggled to breathe as Finn's voice faded away with the room around him. Suddenly he was seven years old again, lying in a bed that was both familiar and strange, like the cologne of some estranged uncle- distant and yet wholly recognizable.

_The quiet crying always came at night. It wasn't like the violent sobs of the day which worked themselves up into screams, in the hopes that someone, anyone, might save him. It wasn't red faces and bruised cheeks and fear. That kind of crying was sharp and fast and easily quieted by a gentle touch from Blaine. The tears that came at night were different. They were stifled and caught painfully in Kurt's throat as he tried to breathe through them. There was something sacred, almost holy, about damp pillow cases and shaking shoulders; about the ache that settled in Kurt's chest whenever he closed his eyes; about wet tracks on cold cheeks and the hope that, this time, no one would hear him._

_The quiet crying always came at night because that was when Kurt thought about them, the tall man with soft hands and the smaller woman with soft eyes. But the more Kurt thought about them, the more he realized he was starting to forget the exact color of her eyes, the shape of his smile. It had been eight months since the last time he'd seen them. Eight months since the last time he'd been able to call them, or anyone else for that matter, "mommy and daddy." It had been so long. He could remember the feeling clearly, the warmth, but the details had started to escape him. That scared Kurt more than anything; more than Mr. Simmons's angry words or heavy fists, more than the thought of leaving. He couldn't stand forgetting. The memories were all he had left, and now they were slipping away from him. Kurt turned into this pillow and scrunched his eyes tighter, as though he could bring it all back if he just wished hard enough._

_Yes, the quiet crying always came at night, but it was never quiet enough. Kurt was curled into himself, his face tucked into his pillow, when he felt the familiar warmth of Blaine's small hand on his back. The soft touch didn't silence Kurt's tears as it would during the day. At night, it never did. Maybe it wasn't supposed to._

_The mattress dipped slightly and Kurt could feel Blaine climbing onto the bed beside him. Blaine's hand had shifted from Kurt's back to his shoulder and he knew that if he turned around, he would see Blaine sitting cross-legged on the bed, his eyes soft. It was the same every other night. And like every other night, Kurt felt himself leaning into Blaine's touch__**, **__before he rolled over and opened his eyes. He could barely make out Blaine's face, but the younger boy's eyes shone empathetically in the dim moonlight that spilled in through the window. For a moment, Kurt just stared at those eyes. It always surprised him that Blaine was there; that Blaine could hear him when everyone else seemed to constantly be playing deaf, when Kurt had thought himself so quiet. But Blaine was there, he was always there._

_Then Kurt's arms were wrapped around his friend, gripping tightly at the the shirt on his back. The older boy's face tucked itself into Blaine's shoulder, dampening the cheap fabric of his shirt collar and breathing in his scent- sweat and cotton and something else, something familiar and distinctly Blaine. Blaine's own arms wound themselves around Kurt's shaking body. He didn't say anything. Blaine rarely ever said anything on nights like this. During the day it was almost impossible to get Blaine to stop talking; he was constantly rambling about one thing or another. Whether he was keeping Kurt's mind occupied with his endless banter or his own, Kurt was never sure, but Blaine reserved his silence for nights, opting to let Kurt initiate any conversation they might have. Most nights Kurt took solace in the silence, but tonight was not most nights. Tonight was too much to bear alone._

"_I'm starting to forget them," Kurt breathed as his sobs subsided. His voice was so quiet in his own ears, he wasn't sure if Blaine would hear him. Blaine's arms tightened around Kurt's back in response, but he said nothing. There was a long silence before Kurt finally pulled away from Blaine's embrace, and Blaine let him go. Kurt wiped at his face, trying to rid his cheeks of the tear tracks that were slowly drying there. He laid down on his back, staring straight up at the ceiling. He half expected Blaine to leave and go back to his own bed, but he should have known better than that. Instead, Blaine slowly lowered himself down beside Kurt, matching the older boy's position with his eyes trained on the ceiling panels._

"_Tell me about them," Blaine's voice drifted into the still air, filling the silence rather than breaking it with his quiet tone._

_Kurt turned his head to stare at Blaine, but the younger boy's eyes remained on the ceiling. He had his arms up behind his head. The muscles in his arms and jaw were tense despite the casual position. And he was so still, Kurt could have thought him dead were it not for the steady rise and fall of his chest. Blaine was the only person Kurt had ever met who could be that still. Kurt himself fidgeted. He had known from the moment he had spoken that Blaine would understand exactly what he had meant, who he had meant, but he was reluctant to share that part of his life. Even with Blaine._

"_I'm sorry," Blaine moved then, shifting and rolling onto his side to look at Kurt. One arm remained under his head as a sort of makeshift pillow. The other hung lamely over his side. "You don't have to talk about them if you don't want to. I just- I____just thought, if you think you're forgetting them, maybe talking about them would help."_

_Kurt nodded, turning his attention back to the panels on the roof, counting them once, twice, three times before finally speaking._

"_I don't know what to tell you," he____answered finally, his voice tiny in the vast and heavy silence of the room. His hands were shaking slightly, and he could feel tears burning behind his eyes._

"_That's okay," Blaine told him. "You don't have to tell me, I just thought-"_

"_I want to tell you," Kurt cut him off, turning his face towards Blaine. "I just don't know what to tell you."_

_Blaine's shoulders twitched in the closest semblance of a shrug he could manage while lying on his side. "You could start at the beginning."_

_And so Kurt did. He began at the beginning__**, **__and he told Blaine everything he could remember. From the way his father had always used different voices when reading bedtime stories and his mother sang lullabies with perfect pitch, to the way his mother had combed his hair and his father always smelled of tobacco smoke and light cologne. He told Blaine everything._

_Somewhere in the middle of it all, Blaine's hand had found its way to Kurt's stomach, resting there like a lifeline that kept Kurt from drowning in his memories. Whenever it got to be too much, too painful to speak, he would focus on that hand and the warmth it spread across his stomach. He would focus on the subtle contact, the closeness, and he would be able to speak again. And with every word, Kurt could feel a weight leaving his chest. Maybe he didn't have to carry the memories alone._

"_They sound really nice, Kurt," Blaine said gently after Kurt was finished and another silence had settled, this one much more comfortable than before. He was still lying on his side, his arm was tingling with lack of blood flow from laying on it too long, but Blaine refused to move. He didn't want to disturb the moment, didn't want to distract from Kurt, didn't want to leave the world of Kurt's memories and come back to his own life. It was nicer living inside Kurt's words, and he didn't want to think about anything else, so he remained still._

"_Do you ever miss your mommy and daddy?" Kurt asked suddenly, timidly, as though hoping he hadn't gone too far by asking. He felt Blaine tense beside him, his stillness broken and then intensified. The hand across Kurt's stomach twitched slightly as the muscles in Blaine's body reacted to the words. Kurt turned his face to look at Blaine's then, studying the younger boy in the dim lighting. Blaine smiled gently, but it didn't reach his eyes. Kurt wondered absently if Blaine was too young to be smiling like that and if he, himself, was too young to be noticing._

"_You can't miss something you never had," Blaine stated simply. His eyes were distant, staring at something Kurt couldn't see._

"_You never had a mommy or daddy?" Kurt's small eyebrows knitted together in confusion. Everyone had a mommy and daddy. Sometimes people lost their mommies and daddies, like Kurt, but everyone had them. Didn't they?_

_Blaine simply shrugged, the distant, dead look never leaving his eyes__**, **__which refused to make contact with Kurt's._

"_We should sleep," Blaine said abruptly. He sat up, moving to go back to his own bed. Kurt caught his wrist, causing Blaine to pause, one leg already off the bed._

"_Don't leave me," Kurt whimpered desperately. His eyes were trained on the back of Blaine's head. There was a moment of silence, and Kurt thought with a sudden panic that Blaine might leave anyway, that he had crossed some line and would be alone tonight. He should have know better than that._

"_Okay," Blaine said after a moment, sliding back onto the bed and laying down beside Kurt. "Okay, I won't."_

_Kurt smiled and rolled over, Blaine did the same so both boys laid back to back savoring the warmth between them, the feeling of closeness they had both been torn from._

"_Promise me," Kurt said after a moment, his voice heavy with sleep now that Blaine was beside him._

"_Hmm?" Blaine slurred, breathing in heavily in a failed attempt to chase away his own grogginess._

"_You have to promise," Kurt insisted. There was an urgency in his voice. This was suddenly about so much more than Blaine staying beside him that night to chase away the nightmares. It was about so much more than____Blaine being there now. He needed to know that Blaine would always be there, because there was no one else, not anymore. And Kurt couldn't be left behind again. "Promise you won't leave. Because you can't break a promise, right?"_

"_Right," Blaine agreed, a smile evident in his voice, but when he spoke again, his tone was entirely serious._

"_I promise."_

When Kurt came back into the present, his face was wetand he was shaking. Rachel, who had been sitting beside him, had her hand on his wrist and a concerned look on her face. Except she wasn't sitting anymore, she was crouched beside him. Kurt noticed for the first time that he was sitting on the floor, his back to the wall. How had he gotten on the floor? The look on Rachel's face reminded him of what had just happened. He had just flashed back. In the middle of glee club.

"Are you okay?" Rachel whispered. She was one of the only people outside of his family who knew about his flashbacks. Kurt shook his head, stating the obvious- no, he was not okay.

"What's wrong? Did you just-" shetrailed off, and Kurt shook his head- yes, he had just hada flashback. His first flashback in four years. She bit her lip.

"Do you want to go to the nurse?" sheasked, her voice still low. It was a stupid question. School hours were over, and the nurse had no doubt gone home long ago.

Kurt was suddenly aware that the room was silent. Everyone was staring at him-even Blaine. Kurt's stomach churned because_ that's_ who this kid was. He was _Blaine._ He wasn't justsome random kid who had happened to come from the same sort of background as Kurt. He wasn't just some stranger. Kurt _knew_ him. He had grown up with him, been _close_ to him, and he had forgotten him. Blaine had been Kurt's friend- his only friend- for that first year or so after Kurt was put into the System. Kurt could remember it clearly now, though he had managed to block it from his mind for years. He could remember everything about that night, about the desperation and loneliness and the comfort of that younger boy beside him. He had been transferred to a new home a few months later.

Suddenly, Kurt wanted nothing more than to bolt out of that room, to run home and close his front door and forget that Blaine Anderson had ever walked through the doors of McKinley. To forget he had ever known a Blaine Anderson at all. But he had his pride to protect, and Kurt was nothing without his pride. So, with everyone staring at him, he wiped the tears from his cheeks- he still wasn't sure when he had begun crying- and shook his head as he rose from the floor. He was proud of how sure his footing was, despite the shaking in his limbs.

"No," He choked out as he slumped into his chair. His voice was thick, and he cleared his throat before trying again. "No, no I'm okay. Really." He smiled then, as though it proved he really was fine. Rachel was staring at him doubtfully, and he was sure Finn was too, but he couldn't risk looking over to check. Instead he smiled at Rachel and nodded his head. "Really, Rach, I'm fine. Let's just finish glee club, okay?"

"Kurt?" he tensed at the sound of Finn's voice. He refused to look over at his knew Blaine was standing next to him, and he couldn't look. "Maybe I should call Dad or something-"

"No!" Kurt snapped, risking a glance at Finn then. He didn't need to worry his parents about this. It was one flashback. He was fine. He kept his eyes trained on Finn's face. "No, don't call him, Finn, I-"

"Kurt, you're not _fine_," Finn snapped. "That was- I haven't seen anything like that in _years_, Kurt. This wasn't just you tuning out. Maybe-"

"Just drop it, Finn, okay?" Kurt shot back, letting anger cover up his embarrassment. "We can talk to mom and dad or something when we get home tonight, okay? Let's just finish class. Mr. Schue?"

He looked to his teacher desperately.

"Well, actually," Mr. Schue began, somewhat awkwardly. He didn't know how to react to a situation like that. "Time's up. You guys should head on home. Kurt- should I call your parents to come and get you?"

"No." Kurt rolled his eyes. The gesture might have been more effective had they not been so red from tears he didn't actually remember crying. "Finn drove me here, he can drive me home."

Mr. Schue looked doubtful but nodded.

"Okay, class dismissed. I'll see you guys on Monday." He clapped his hands, and the room was suddenly alive with movement. But it was eerie, and unnatural as no one spoke. Only the rustle of backpacks and clothing chased complete silence away. Kurt ignored their glances as best he could, and hurried out of the room, ignoring Rachel's attempts to keep pace with him. He just needed to get out of there.

And yet, he didn't miss Finn's departing words to Blaine, nor did he fail to notice the way Blaine's eyes followed him- across the room, out the door.

"I'm sorry about that," Kurt's brother began. "Glee's usually more, uh, fun than this. This was- well, maybe you could come again on Monday? I understand if you don't want to or something, but we really could use your voice. Just- come and check out a regular rehearsal or something?"

There was a hesitant pause so long that Kurt was almost out of earshot when Blaine's voice answered. He could still feel the junior's eyes on his back.

"Yeah, okay, sure. I'll be here."


	4. Chapter 3

**Warnings: Mentions of the onset of child abuse- nothing graphic. Mentions of panic attacks- none actually occur, though. I think that's it for this chapter. **

**A/N: I AM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG. Filler chapters are necessary to the plot and character development and all that, but they are SO HARD to write because "plot things" aren't directly happening in them. I mean they're still fun and interesting and stuff, they're just hard. I hope you don't hate me. Hope you enjoy the chapter? **

"_Kurt!_" Rachel's high pitchedvoice carried itself across the long corridor of the school's main hall, reverberating off the tiled floors and metal lockers and nearly knocking Kurt off his feet. He had no idea how she managed to be so _loud_, but he chalked it up to her being a singer. A belt like hers was bound to have repercussions, and her volume was definitely one of them. Still, loud or not, Kurt couldn't help but be glad at the sight of his best friend.

"Hey, Rach!" he exclaimed as she scurried up beside him and slipped her arm into his. He smiled at her touch. Kurt had not seen her all weekend- or anyone else for that matter. The incident on Friday had lead to a complete lockdown once he had arrived home, and he had barely left his room at all over the last three days. Not that he really minded. He had actually appreciated the alone time; he had needed to sort things out. It had taken that entire weekend to convince his parents that, no, he did not need to go back to seeing his therapist. It was his senior year of high school and he was not about to spend it sitting around having his head shrunk because of one incident. Still, despite his gratitude for the time to himself, it had been a lonely three days. So, it was nice to have Rachel back by his side, her endless chatter filling the rapidly emptying hallway as they headed down the corridor toward the glee room.

"Kurt are you even listening to me?" Rachel asked, and Kurt shook his head, pulling himself out of his thoughts.

"Actually, no, sorry," he responded, smiling sheepishly. He felt bad for ignoring her, but it was hard to hear over the rushing of blood in his ears. Having her by his side was comforting; it gave him an anchor to ground himself. But it didn't quell the pounding of his heart or the panic in his stomach which threatened to burst from him at any moment, because he knew what was waiting for him on the other side of the choir room doors-_ who_ was waiting for him. Finn had offered countless times to withdraw his invitation to Blaine, but Kurt had declined. He knew he was overreacting, and he needed to get over this. He couldn't do that by running away or forgetting. He had done enough forgetting for one lifetime. No, Kurt was determined to handle this like an adult. He was going to be eighteen soon, after all. It was time he stopped hiding from his problems. He was going to face this one head on. He was going to prove to himself, and to everyone else, that he really could leave his past behind him and move on. He was going to befriend Blaine Anderson.

Again.

"Holding a conversation with you is going to be impossible today, isn't it?" Rachel teased gently. She squeezed his arm lightly to remind him that she was there, and he had her support. It was a subtle gesture, but Kurt smiled. Rachel really was a good friend- when she wanted to be.

"Maybe a little," Kurt responded. He tried to laugh, but it sounded forced, even to himself. They were standing just outside the classroom now. He could see into the room past the open door, but he didn't step into view himself and Rachel didn't push him. It was so strange to him, feeling such terrible trepidation over entering the glee room. This room had been his safe haven for more than three years. It was the one place he could go to escape everything, his refuge from life. But all of a sudden the curtains were closed and the incandescent warmth of that room was shut out, replaced by warning lights which tugged dangerously at Kurt's senses. He swallowed hard.

"You need to do this Kurt," She nodded affirmingly, as though she knew anything about the matter. As though she understood, somehow, just how difficult this was going to be for Kurt. "You have to do this for _you_."

Any other day Kurt might have been annoyed by the condescension in her tone, but he was far too nervous to feel any irritation. Instead he focused on her words, drawing comfort from her intentions. He felt like a soldier hiding in the trenches, waiting for an attack or a bomb- waiting for something, _anything,_ that might spur him into action and remind him what he was fighting for. There was nothing, though. No explosion or death with which to end this war with himself. There was only the soldier and his battle field, so Kurt took a deep breath and released it slowly before crossing the doorway into no man's land.

Blaine didn't know why he had agreed to this. Joining glee club was the last thing he needed. He didn't want to be a _part_ of something, not when he might be ripped away at any second. He didn't want to get comfortable here. And he especially didn't want to get mixed up with _glee_. He didn't need the attention, the prying eyes. He got enough stares as it was, and he hated it. He couldn't remember how he had handled it all before living with the Townings. Every glance made his skin crawl, his muscles ache with tension. And the only thing glee would do was intensify those stares.

And yet here he was, sitting in a chair in the back of the choir room. He could have left school as soon as the bell rang. He could have packed up his backpack and headed home, but he had headed here instead. And now, while shifting his position in the cheap plastic chair he had chosen, he was left to wonder _why_. Maybe it was the sickening smell of alcohol that had taken over the air at the Dodsons' now that Carrie had stopped coming around to check up on him. Or maybe it was the fact that he couldn't _go home_ because "home" was miles away, and the Dodsons' barely even counted as a place to live. Maybe it was the dull ache in his shoulder from when Mr. Dodson had shoved him a little too hard into the wall by the stairway last night. Maybe it was just that Blaine was a lot lonelier than he allowed himself to admit.

Whatever the reason, Blaine was here- sitting at the back of the room, trying to make himself invisible, as the glee club members filed in. They all pretended not to stare, but he could feel their eyes. It made his skin crawl. He hated being under such scrutiny. He hated feeling so exposed in such an unfamiliar place. The room was too wide, the doors too open. There was too much space between his back and the wall behind him. Suddenly, he wanted nothing more than to get up and bolt out the door to find someplace smaller, someplace with a door that closed and locked and sturdy walls he could press himself back against so that no one could sneak up behind him. He needed to get out, needed to find someplace warm and safe and separate- someplace quiet. Just as his panic was threatening to overtake him, a voice jerked him out of his thoughts.

"Hey, it's Blaine, right?" Blaine's heart jumped at the sudden address, but he managed to keep his body from following suit. He was getting better at this. Calmly he raised his eyes toward the speaker, meeting their grey-blue color with his own brown eyes. There was a stormy quality to the light eyes, but their owner, a tall blonde boy, was smiling genuinely. The boy had flipped a chair around so that he was sitting backwards in it, straddling the cheap plastic back to face Blaine. Blaine recognized him from his second period history class. Today was the first time Blaine had seen him there, but the resounding chorus of "Welcome Back!" which had erupted from the other students made it quite clear he wasn't a new student.

"Yeah, that's me," Blaine responded, the familiar Blaine Anderson smile he wore like a mask finding its way to his face, tugging his lips up with just the right lilt of a smirk to make him seem confident, but not cocky. It had taken Blaine years to perfect that smile. He had been worried that his year and a half with the Townings might have erased it, but it appeared he had been wrong. It was a reflex, one he hadn't needed for a long time, but a reflex nonetheless. Blaine had been keeping a low profile, terrified that his mask might have faded from disuse, but there were some things which simply could not be forgotten. Some kids rode bikes, Blaine Anderson smiled.

"And you are?"

"Evans. Sam Evans," the boy informed him, dropping his voice a whole octave and suddenly acquiring a faux British accent. Blaine blinked at him, uncomprehendingly.

"That was James Bond," Sam explained almost awkwardly. Blaine tilted his head slightly, not quite understanding.

"Sam does impressions," offered a pretty, Asian girl, turning to face them from the seat in front of Blaine. Blaine blinked.

"You know, like 'Bond. James Bond.' From the movies?" Sam tried again to explain.

"Oh!" Blaine laughed, suddenly recalling the quote from commercials on TV and half-heard jokes in the hallways. "Right."

"Sam thinks he's a lot better than he is," the girl teased, shooting Sam a friendly smirk.

"Hey!" Sam shot back.

"No, no, it was good, honest." Blaine assured him with a smile.

"Look at that, Tina. _Blaine_ thinks my impressions are good," Sam proclaimed with a smug smile, and the girl, Tina, laughed.

"_Blaine_ is just being polite," she teased, scrunching her face up slightly. Sam _humphed_ and Tina laughed once more before turning to Blaine. "I'm Tina, by the way."

She held her hand out to him,and Blaine hesitated a beat too long before taking it in his own and shaking it. He may be getting better about his jumpiness, but it was still hard to swallow his reluctance toward contact. And the stutter in the gesture, one which ought to be so fluent, seemed glaringly obvious to Blaine. Neither Sam nor Tina seemed to notice, though. Blaine was grateful for that.

He expected them to turn around and leave now, their curiosity over the "new kid" satisfied. That was usually how it worked. So when Sam inquired of Blaine as to what the history homework was, it took Blaine a moment to answer.

"Uh, I-" He shook his head once to clear it. "Notes on chapters twenty-one and twenty-two and, uh, questions five through eight on page four-oh-something, uhm, here I can check, give me a second." Blaine moved to open his backpack to pull out the spiral notebook he kept everything in, but Sam's voice stopped him.

"Nah, man, it's cool. I have it written down somewhere, I think. What do you think of Mr. Danbury, though?"

"Oh, don't start that again," Tina groaned.

"What?" Blaine asked, glancing at Tina.

"Sam has this ridiculous theory that Mr. Danbury is actually a satyr or something," she elaborated, rolling her eyes.

"It's not a ridiculous theory!" Sam exclaimed. He slammed his hands on the back of his chair, and Blaine tensed imperceptibly at the sudden noise. "The evidence is all right there! Just today he ate right into the core of his apple. He bit into the _core_, Tina. You saw him, didn't you Blaine? What do you think?"

"About Mr. Danbury being a- uhm?" Blaine raised an eyebrow.

"Satyr," Sam provided, nodding encouragingly.

"Which is what exactly?" Blaine asked, allowing a friendly, easy laugh to escape his lips. It sounded convincing and sincere, even to his own ears. He was better at this than he thought. Then again, he had always been good at playing a character. Even after more than a year of neglect, charismatic Blaine was an easy role to slip into. This Blaine could handle conversation, joking, laughing, and messing around- even with complete strangers. This Blaine didn't think about the vastness of the room or the ache in his shoulders. This Blaine didn't want to run and hide. This Blaine could handle anything. He had forgotten how easy it was to slip into character.

"Someone who's half goat and half human," Tina explained, sighing heavily. "Sam's convinced he's hiding goat legs under his corduroys."

"Wouldn't we have noticed them by now?" Blaine asked, turning his focus to Sam. "I mean, it's been more than three weeks since school started. If he was a goat-man, we should have seen something, right? Hairy legs, hooves, random bleating..." Blaine trailed off, grinning with just the perfect amount of mirth, and Tina dropped her head into her hand, her shoulders shaking with silent laughter. Sam, however, did not seem to find the question funny. He jumped at the opportunity to share his conspiracy.

"That's just it, though." Sam's voice dropped, and he leaned in toward Blaine as though sharing top secret information. Blaine leaned forward a bit, too, grinning widely at Tina, whose eyes danced with amusement. "Satyrs are linked with Faeries, not like the fairy talekind, though, but like the real kind. And faeries are masters of the art of concealing things. So long as they have faeries on their side, we will never be able to tell apart the satyrs apart from the real humans!"

"Sam, that is so ridiculous," Tina retorted. "Blaine, just ignore him. I swear he's not usually this, uhm, eccentric. It's just sometimes-"

"I don't know," Blaine leaned back, keeping his smile firmly in place. He was in his element here. Sure, he would rather be alone and unattached, but he knew how to play a role- how to please an audience. He let his smile quirk upward crookedly. "It seems pretty likely to me, Tina. I mean, Mr. Danbury's laugh is pretty goat-like."

Sam whooped victoriously, pumping his fist in the air, Tina dropped her head into her hands in defeat, and Blaine laughed. He had forgotten how easy it was to slip underneath that mask. He was hiding in plain sight- Blaine knew the part well and he could play it. So long as he locked himself behind a smile, he could take center stage and never have to connect to anyone. Let people stare, Blaine knew how to be invisible despite the spotlight. He could focus on that smile, on keeping his shoulders squared, on saying all the right things, and he would be safe. Hiding behind words was what Blaine Anderson did best. It's what he has always done best.

And then _he_ walked in.

Kurt didn't know what he was expecting upon entering the choir room, but this wasn't it. He was expecting tension; a war zone, maybe- a divided front with the line drawn between Blaine and the rest of the glee kids. He wasn't expecting this _normality._ The glee club was alive with the casual banter he was accustomed to hearing every other day.

His eyes scanned the room automatically for Blaine, and found him sitting in the far back corner of the room. He was wearing a plain grey tee shirt that seemed just a little too small for him, and a simple pair of jeans. He looked good, Kurt couldn't help but notice, despite the simplicity of his attire, so different from Kurt's own expensive outfit. And he was _laughing_. He was cornered by Tina and Sam who both seemed to be chattering excitedly at him from their own chairs, and Blaine was laughing. He had seemed so uncomfortable on Friday, that his sudden ease set Kurt on edge. There was something wrong about his smile, but Kurt couldn't quite place what it was.

"You can do this," Rachel whispered quietly, giving his arm a gentle squeeze. Kurt forced himself to take a breath, and then a step, and then another. He headed toward the two empty seats on the first row of chairs, lowering himself into one as Rachel situated herself adjacent to him.

"You doing alright?" she asked. Kurt paused a moment and then nodded because, yes, he was doing alright. Blaine was in the same room as him, but Kurt was okay. There was no memory tugging at the edges of his mind. No panic threatened to drag him under. He could do this. He let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding, and risked another glance in Blaine's direction. This time, however, he was shocked to find Blaine staring right back with a strange, muddled expression on his face. The two boys held one another's glances for a moment. Blaine's stare was heavy, his expression intense but unreadable. Kurt couldn't find the strength to look away. Then Sam must have said something, because Blaine's attention snapped away from Kurt,and an amused smile took over his expression. Kurt continued to stare for a moment longer, just watching Blaine. There was something both strange and vaguely familiar about the way Blaine held himself. Kurt recognized the way he angled his body so that his back was always to the wall, keeping everyone in front of him.

But maybe Kurt was just imagining that. It's been almost ten years since the last time Kurt had seen Blaine. Almost ten years since they shared a foster home. Almost ten years since Kurt was "saved" from that house, only to be dumped into another hell hole, before finally being adopted into the Hudson-Hummel household. And in those ten years, Kurt had grown into himself. He had moved on from his past. With a sudden, lovely gust of relief, Kurt stared at Blaine's confident smile and realized that he had truly and honestly moved on. The past was behind him. Surely it was for Blaine, too. Ten years was a long time, and Blaine had been young. Surely things had turned up for this boy, just as they had for Kurt. He was comforting himself with this thought when something pulled at his memory.

"Rachel?" heasked suddenly pulling his eyes away from Blaine to turn toward his best friend.

"Yeah?" shewhispered, suddenly alert with overly dramatic attentiveness. "Are you okay? Is it too much? Should we leave? We can leave if we need to, just say the w-"

"No, Rachel, I'm fine," he said, rolling his eyes, but a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "I just wanted to ask you a question."

"Oh," she sat back in her chair a bit, her posture relaxing as she crossed her legs. "Okay."

"When you first saw Blaine- on the first day of school, you know? You told me the ladies at the front desk were talking about him. You said that he's in the foster system?"

"Yeah, so?" Rachel gave him an inquisitive look. "I thought you knew that he was in the System. Didn't you, like, know him or something?"

"But they said that he _is_ in the foster system? Like present tense?"

"Yeah, I think so. Why?" Rachel responded. A cloud passed over Kurt's face and his eyes softened with a strange kind of sorrow, as they traveled back to study Blaine's smile.

"Kurt?" Rachel's voice sounded concerned, but he didn't turn back to her.

"Eleven years," he murmured.

"What?" Rachel asked. She placed a hand on his shoulder, and when he turned to face her, his eyes were wet. "Kurt?"

"Eleven years, Rachel." Kurt stated, as though that somehow answered everything. He shook his head, trying to clear it. "I- I met Blaine eleven years ago. We were in the same foster home, my first foster home. And he- Rachel, he never got out."


	5. Chapter 4

**Warnings: minor hints at past abuse**

**Pairings: Klaine**

**A/N: Sorry this took forever and is so short. I know 2.5 K is not sufficient for how long this took. This is only the first half of chapter 4 but I thought I'd post it in two installments cause I am taking forever and am awful. K, love all. Enjoy. (Do I still need to say that I don't own glee or is that implied at this point?)**

Kurt dropped his head into his hands, squeezing his eyes shut against his thoughts, against the people in the room, against everything around him. How did he think he could do this? He had spent no longer than five minutes in choir room,yet everything that Blaine was had already begun to tear him apart like rough and careless waves against a shoreline, breaking him into grains of sand. He took a shaky breath, trying to pull himself together, but his thoughts circled his mind endlessly, wearing him down and making him raw.

_Eleven years, eleven years, eleven years, eleven years..._

Kurt had spent four years in therapy trying to wash away the scars left by three years of the system. He could not bring himself to evenimagine eleven years of living in that hell. The thought left his throat raw and his mouth tasting of blood.

There was no way he could do this, no way he could sit here with his brother lounging across the classroom chattering avidly with Puck, knowing he had parents at home who loved him. Carol's night shift at the hospital should have ended only a few hours after Kurt and Finn left for school. She might be sleeping now, breathing in the light, soft snores that used to lull Kurt into dreaming when he had been young and small enough to fit in her bed- when he couldn't stand the nightmares alone. Or perhaps she was getting dinner prepared. His father would be at work. Later that night, he would come home smelling of motor oil and gasoline, his overalls stained from a hard day's work and a wide smile on his face.

How could Kurt be sitting here, in the same room as Blaine, when he had all of that to go home to? Kurt had somehow managed to geteverything he had ever wanted: a family, a chance to forget. A chance to forget the system, to forget his past, to forget Blaine Anderson.

He should leave.

He couldn't be in that room anymore. He no longer cared what resolutions he may havemade only moments before; there was no way he could do this. He needed to get out of that room- out of that school. He needed to go home to his mom and dad, to sit in his chair around the table and listen to them tease one another quietly while he dipped Oreos into a glass of milk. He needed to forget again. He had remembered enough for one lifetime.

A hand laid itself upon Kurt's shoulder like an anchor, stopping the endless churning, to-and-fro, of his thoughts and pullinghim back into the present.

"Kurt?" Rachel's voice reached him softly, its usual urgent and pinched tone replaced with soft concern. "Are you alright?"

Kurt took a deep breath, rubbing a hand across his face before sitting up. He didn't know how to respond.

"I'm-" he cut himself off, opting to look toward Blaine, as if he might find ananswer somewhere in the crook of Blaine's smile. And it was in that smile that Kurt found his resolve. He nodded his head and squared his shoulders. Kurt was done running. Blaine was smiling, laughing at something Sam had said. There was no need for Kurt to start his own personal pity party for Blaine Anderson- not when Blaine was smiling and laughing and looking, for the all the world, entierly _happy_.

Maybe Kurt was blowing things out of proportion. Anyone who knew him could attest that Kurt had a tendency to fall into dramatics. He lived his life on a black and white scale from best to worst-case scenarios, often missing the gray scale in between. This was not a day to be thinking in absolutes. This was a day to stop running, to stop forgetting- or, at the very least, a day to start over. Kurt took a moment to steel his nerve before standing from his seat.

"Kurt?" Rachel called after him as he began to move away from her, a ship blown from its mooring. He did not turn back, did not answer her. "Kurt what are you doing? Kurt?!" He couldn't find words to respond; he could barely hear her. He had set his course and all Kurt could do now was sail.

"Hi, you're Blaine, right?" Blaine looked up, only slightly startled, from his conversation with Sam, to see _him_ standing there. Blaine's heart skipped a beat.

Blaine Anderson had an impeccable memory- one far too good for his own well-being. He could remember every home he had ever lived in, every person he had ever lost, every terrible thing that had ever been done to him. And if Blaine could remember every tragedy of his past, then he could remember Kurt.

Kurt had been the first and last friend Blaine had made within the system. That wasn't to say that Blaine had never made another friend. Blaine made friends easily, when he could convince himself it was worth the effort. During his year with the Townings, Blaine had made more friends than he had known how to manage. But Kurt had been the first and last real friend Blaine had made from inside the system itself. He had met other kids- lived with them. He had tried to protect and raise some of the younger ones, and even tried to get to know the kids his own age. But after Kurt, he could never bring himself to truly befriend another foster kid. There were too many goodbyes involved for him to ever get attached. At seven years old, Kurt had taught Blaine one of the most important lessons he had ever learned. It was rule number 3 of the system: everyone leaves eventually. Kurt had been no exception to that rule.

Blaine could still remember everything about the day Kurt had left. He could remember the sting in his chest as he watched Kurt, leaning out of the window of the small black car like a confused puppy, not sure if he should be savoring the wind or missing his own front lawn, get smaller and smaller in the distance. He could remember the sting in his arm from Mr. Dodson's grip as he was pulled roughly back into the house. He could remember the throbbing of the strange and familiar red dots his foster father's fingers had painted across his small bicep when Blaine had inspected his skin later that evening. It wasn't a foreign scene. He was no stranger to red or purple handprints on his skin, but it had been different that night. That night there had been no one to compare scars with, no one to chatter to until his arm stopped hurting, no one to distract and no one to distract _him_.

Blaine had waited weeks for Kurt to come home. Mr. Dodson told him over and over, with a sort of gruff nonchalance, which only served to nurture Blaine's hate for the man, that Kurt was never coming back. But it wasn't until the third week passed without any sign of Kurt that Blaine stopped waiting for him by the window each night, after Mr. Dodson had passed out into a drunken stupor by the light of the TV till dawn threatened to wake his foster father. It wasn't until the fifth week passed that Blaine stopped stealing an extra granola bar from the kitchen when the house was empty. And it had been two whole months before Blaine finally traded sleeping in Kurt's bed, just in case Kurt came home and needed him, for the safety and closeness of the closet.

It had been a long time since the day Blaine had watched Kurt disappear down the short stretch of road outside the Dodson's. Eleven years, almost. It had been a long time, but Blaine had never been able to shake the small and ridiculous hope that Kurt was still out there somewhere. Onnights when things were particularly bad at whatever home Blaine happened to live at, he would close his eyes and be six years old again, lying back to back in Kurt's bed and promising never to leave.

Even eleven years later, Blaine had held on to the hope that there was someone out there that remembered his name, remembered his face, who remembered _Blaine_ the way Blaine remembered them. And now Kurt was standing in front of him, Blaine's name falling off his lips the way Blaine had imagined a million times.

Except this was wrong. When Blaine had pictured this moment, he had pictured warmth and surprise and perhaps even joy. There was none of that in Kurt's tone. Kurt's smile, as he held his hand out toward Blaine, was almost impassive, more formal than familiar. There was something forced about the line of his lips.

Blaine swallowed hard. He had always known it was a stupid wish- remembrance. There was no finality in it; there was no security in recognition. But Blaine's life had been an anthology of goodbyes. Stability had never been in the question, and Blaine had never really had anyone to remember him. The idea that someone out there, somewhere, might recall his name from time to time was a strange sort of balm on every scar and bruise his memory could conjure. He had told himself over and over not to think on it, not to hope for it, because he knew one day a moment like this would come. The day when this hope crumbled as it did now. It settled like ice in his stomach. But there was no way Blaine would make it through the rest of the day if he succumbed to the bitter chill. So, instead, Blaine did what he did best and smiled.

"I'm Kurt," Kurt continued, and Blaine had to resist the urge to flinch as Kurt's introduction added painful insult to an unintentional injury. He kept an amiable smile firmly on his face.

"Oh, yeah, you're Finn's brother, right?" Blaine took Kurt's hand politely in his own. Something stirred behind Kurt's eyes, something that didn't quite cohere with the distant pleasantry of his smile, but it was gone before Blaine could place it.

"That's me," Kurt laughed. "'Though usually people say it the other way around, since I am the better part of the family." Blaine managed a laugh, his actions going into autopilot. It happened like this sometimes, when things got to be too much. When things got to be too much to handle, or when a memory hit him too hard, some instinct would take over and Blaine would find himself floating**)**. He could hear everything being said, and hear himself respond, but it was almost like he wasn't in his body. He liked it better this way. He couldn't feel anything like this. Nothing hurt. He didn't have to think; he could just float. But it never lasted long.

Sam clapped Blaine on the shoulder, pulling him roughly back into his body.

"Kurt here is the best soprano in glee," he was saying, grinning. Kurt rolled his eyes.

"Just don't let Rachel hear you say that," Tina chided, but she was smiling, too. Kurt laughed, and Blaine mimicked him, though he didn't understand what was funny. There was something false, something forced, about Kurt's laugh.

"I am _not_ a soprano, Sam Evans," Kurt deflected as he straightened his sweater. "I'm simply a well ranged tenor."

"I've never met a tenor in my life who could hit those notes," Sam shot back, a jovial smirk on his face. It fell off as Kurt smacked him lightly on the back of the head. "Hey!"

Kurt opened his mouth to respond, but was cut off by the glee coach, Mr. Schuester's, entrance into the room.

"Hey guys!" The teacher called. "Can everyone take their seats, please? We have a lot to get to today." He was heading toward the whiteboard.

"Well it was nice meeting you," Kurt told Blaine, smiling.

"You too," Blaine agreed pleasantly before Kurt headed back to his seat in the front beside a pretty brunette in what looked like a moose sweater.

"Alright guys, I'm sure most of you have noticed, but we have a few additions to glee this week. Thanks to Finn, Blaine Anderson has agreed to join us," Mr. Schuester gestured toward where Blaine was sitting. "Stand on up, Blaine!"

Blaine did as he was told, smiling with practiced composure at the room which had erupted into a round of whoots and applause. When the cacophony died down a bit, Blaine retook his seat, and Mr. Schuester continued his speech.

"Blaine's joining us, and the return of the one and only Sam Evans-" another round of cheers filled the air, and Sam held his fists up above his head as though he had won some sort of prize- "brings us up to twelve members, and you guys know what that means?"

"We get to go to regionals!" A voice called out from the opposite end of the glee room, followed by a series of scattered cheers.

"Exactly, which means we need to start right away with preparing a set list." The glee teacher grabbed an expo marker from the edge of the whiteboard and uncapped it.

"So this week's assignment, at the request of some of our former Troubletones, is- drum roll please-" the room erupted into a mess of faux drumming as the majority of the classroom provided Mr. Schuester's requested suspense by drumming on their laps. Mr. Schuester began to write in large letters across the whiteboard _M-I-C-H-A-E-L_.

"Michael? As in Michael Jackson?" A boy with a heavy Irish accent questioned from the back of the class.

"That's right," Mr. Schuester answered. "And we haven't got very long-" the girl beside Kurt's hand shot up into the air. She didn't wait to be called on to speak, opting to cut Mr. Schuester off.

"Mr. Schue, didn't we _just_ do a Michael medley for sectionals?" She asked, a superior, almost annoyed, note in her tone.

"Yes, but the Troubletones missed out on performing it with us, and it did so well at sectionals-"

"Which is exactly why we need to do something else!" The girl exclaimed. "If we keep repeating the same set list, the judges are going to hate us!"

"And besides, why should we redo Michael just because the Troubletones 'missed out'?" Tina asked from in front of Blaine. "They were the ones who chose to leave."

"That's not really fair-" someone else called out.

The room broke out into chaos, polarized into agreements and arguments. Someone tapped Blaine on his arm, and he turned to see Sam handing him a small folded up piece of paper.

"It's from Kurt," he murmured, passing Blaine the note. Blaine smiled gratefully before taking the paper and unfolding it. Inside, in quickly scrawled handwriting, it read: _Can we talk? Tonight at the Lima Bean, 5:30._

Blaine's heart jumped into his throat, and he could feel the ice in his stomach thaw a little. He refused to get his hopes up, but something nagged at the back of his mind. This had to mean Kurt remembered him at least a little bit, didn't it? This had to mean _something,_ right?

The answer, Blaine knew, was no, it did not. There was nothing to say this note had to mean anything at all. Blaine repeated that over and over in his head like a mantra as the room around him battled on in aimless, yet heated, argumentation. Blaine knew he should be paying attention, but there was no way he could bring himself to care about the conversation. He tried to focus, to understand what exactly was going on and why everyone was so excited. He tried to listen when Tina leaned back to explain the current drama to Sam and him. He tried to care that the glee club had been divided for sectionals. He really tried. But all he could think of was the thumping of his heart and the indent of the note in his pocket.


	6. Chapter 5

**Warnings:** **Some language toward the end of the chapter. Mentions of past abuse, nothing graphis.**

**A/N: Sorry this took so long guys. I don't really have an excuse outside of life sometimes being busy and me sometimes being lazy and my beta having a life outside of my fics so sometimes things take a while. Anyway, here's your Klaine conversation, per request. Every review is appreciated, but don't feel obligated to say anything. Enjoy the fic guys.**

The room was a cacophonous abstraction. The mention of regionals had polarized those within it into petty differences. Kurt, distracted by the frantic thrumming of his own heart, abstained from the argument. If Rachel noted his silence, she made no comment. Not to Kurt anyway. Toward the rest of the room, she prattled on in stubborn absolution- there was no way she would allow the New Directions to perform the same set list twice in a row. Not in a competition anyway. Santana, sitting across the room, preached the injustice of Rachel's tyranny, screaming angry threats in spanish. Slowly each side dragged the other toward a grudging solution: the Michael Jackson set would not be performed at regionals, so long as it could still be the weekly assignment. Rachel tried to argue-_ "We can't afford to waste time if we plan on winning, Mr. Schue!"_- but in the end, even she had to consent.

Kurt could not care less. He had just sold his soul to chance, and he had done so willingly. And now, he wished more than anything that he could take it back. Kurt had never been one much for chance. He didn't like situations he could not control, and Blaine was a walking bowl of uncertainty. But he had made his decision. He had made a promise to himself- no more running, no more hiding. He was doing the right thing, he just knew it. Or, at least he thought so. Besides, it was just a cup of coffee, wasn't it? If things got uncomfortable or if Blaine didn't recognize him or if Blaine wasn't, well, _Blaine_, he could just call the whole thing initiation and be done with it. He did not need to commit to anything. It was just coffee.

All too quickly the room was alive, churning with students eager to end their school day or to begin working on their songs. Kurt sat back wondering where exactly the time had run off to. Time always moved too quickly when he needed to slow down. He sighed and bent down to retrieve his book bag from under his seat, but was stopped by Santana's voice.

"Wait a minute," she called out. The room quieted, if only slightly, at the sound.

"Would you give it a break, Santana, we're doing your stupid Micheal week, okay?" Rachel snapped, flipping her hair off her shoulder to cover it with her bag strap.

"Not that," Santana retorted, rolling her eyes. "I just realized that moptop over there hasn't had an audition."

Every eye turned to Blaine, who sat awkwardly under their sudden scrutiny.

"What does that matter? Everyone who auditions gets in anyway," Tina pointed out, a defensive lilt to her tone.

"Yeah, and besides, I've heard him sing," Finn pointed out, trying as he often did, to assert his leadership amongst the club.

"Oh so just because you two had a little moment in the showers, we're all supposed to accept him?" Santana held up her hands, cutting Finn off before he could protest. "Look, all I'm saying is that the rest of us had to audition to get in here. If Blaine wants to be one of us, he should do the same." She shrugged.

"As loathe as I am to agree with anything Santana says," Rachel began loftily. "She has a point. I mean, how else are we going to know what Blaine sounds like or where he fits in the choir?"

"It's stupid to have the auditions now," Sam spoke up finally. "He's already been here for two days. Usually auditions happen _before_ you join."

Up to this point, Kurt had said nothing. He was content to watch Blaine with poorly concealed interest. Blaine had sat quietly by, allowing the room around him to discuss his fate as though he weren't in the room at all. It was a troubling contradiction, to see him sitting there poised with eerily perfect posture as the room around him discussed him so objectively. Something about the way he just sat there sparked something in Kurt.

"Why don't we just wait for him to perform Micheal like the rest of us on Friday and use that as the audition? Would that _satisfy _you, Santana?" Kurt suggested. His voice sounded sharp and defensive, even to his own ears. The bite in his tone surprised him. He hadn't meant to speak at all, not really. The words seemed to spill from his mouth of their own accord. His mind performed backflips, trying to justify his own bitterness. Blaine was staring at him strangely. He told himself that it was simply his nature- that Kurt Hummel simply could not sit idly by while another person was discussed like an object. But he knew it was more than that. The problem wasn't that the glee club was being insensitive, but rather that they were being so towards _Blaine_. Kurt swallowed hard and fixed his gaze determinedly on Mr. Schue, both to add weight to his suggestion and to keep his eyes from traveling towards Blaine. This was going to be harder than he had thought.

"That- that sounds fine to me," Mr. Schuester agreed, both taken aback by Kurt's sudden animosity and relieved to have a realistic solution. "Blaine will prepare a Michael song like everyone else, and that'll be that."

Blaine hustled along with everyone out of the glee room. There was such a rush for the door that he found himself being jostled and thrown by the waves of bodies. It was too close for him; there were too many people pressed up against his flesh, and he had never been one for contact. He fell back and allowed the flow of bodies to stream past him and out the door.

He pulled the note from his back pocket, but did not unfold it. He simply stared at the small white square, rolling it over in hands, running his fingers over the edges. This was thirty-seven shades of bad idea, he told himself as he began stepping toward the now empty doorway. This note could be a lot of things, it could mean a lot of things, but none of them were good- that was the only fact Blaine found himself sure of.

"You gonna go?" Blaine jumped, his head snapping up to meet Sam's eyes. He hadn't noticed Sam waiting for him just outside the doorway. Blaine scolded himself mentally for his distracted nature, but composed himself quickly and continued his walk down the hallway.

"Go where?" He asked as Sam fell into step beside him. Sam nodded towards the note Blaine still clutched in his hand.

"I sort of read it over your shoulder," he shrugged. "You gonna go?"

Blaine sighed, too anxious to be upset over Sam's nosiness.

"I don't know." He stuffed the note back into his back pocket.

"Well," Sam said, "All I can say is that anyone you look at the way you were looking at Kurt is worth some coffee, don't you think?"

"The way I was-" Blaine started, confusion coloring his face. Sam held up his hands.

"Hey, hey," he interrupted. "I don't judge. I could care less who you like to have your coffee with, I'm just saying..._get some coffee, should you_." His voice changed strangely at the last phrase, taking on an almost nasally quality.

"Was that Yoda?" Blaine asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Okay, not my best, but roll with me here, okay?" Blaine scoffed mildly. Sam grinned. "Just- you should go. I think you'd be good for him." Then he punched Blaine's arm lightly, jokingly, and hurried down the hallway. Blaine stood for a moment, staring after him.

_This is one strange, strange school_, he thought to himself, shaking his head. What had Sam meant anyway? Did he know Blaine was gay? Was Blaine really that obvious? He had always been such a good actor, so capable of hiding who he was. But he wasn't hiding that anymore, he reminded himself**. **Out and proud, for the Townings. So it didn't matter what Sam thought or what Sam saw. Blaine had bigger secrets to worry about.

At least Sam refrained from dealing out a beating or anything like that. Better yet, he seemed okay with it. And he thought Blaine would be good for Kurt. Did that mean that Kurt was gay, too? Well, that explained the flamboyance of Kurt's outfit. It also added far more unnecessary confusion to Blaine's situation. The note hung with heavier questions in his pocket, burning against his skin.

Blaine knew better than to go. It was a terrible idea. Yet as he weighed the alternatives in his mind, the warning flares seemed to dim a little. The way Blaine saw it, he had two options. He could go back to the Dodson's**,** or he could go to the coffee shop. Going "home" meant danger. He would have to make it through the front door and up the stairway to his bedroom without being seen and risking his foster father's temper. Getting caught could mean anything. Blaine had no idea yet what this new man was capable of, what he would do should Blaine find him with enough alcohol in his system. Blaine rejected that idea instantaneously.

Of course Blaine could simply wander aimlessly around the city, but then he risked being seen by a member of the glee club. There was no doubt in Blaine's mind that Sam had eagerly spilled the whole situation to each of his friends. Being spied simply walking around town would lead to questions or resentment, and that was the last thing Blaine needed.

Which left the Lima Bean with Kurt. Kurt who smiled so distantly, and yet held the chance of being far too close. He could know so much, too much. And knowledge like that led to questions, the kind Blaine could never begin to answer.

He swallowed hard. He needed to get this over with, so theLima Bean it was. It was just coffee. Blaine could last through coffee. He could do this.

With his nerve steeled, Blaine squared his shoulders and continued his walk towards the double door exit of the school. Lockers and doorways passed him on either side. Blaine could never remember the hall being so long, but he kept his eyes trained on the door. He tried not to think.

Kurt pulled into the Lima Bean parking lot exactly seven minutes late. Normally a stickler for timing, Kurt was, for the first time in his life, terrified of seeming over eager. He turned off the engine before resting both his hands on the steering wheel. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath, trying to compose himself, to find some untapped center of strength to pull him out of the car. He could do this. He was going to do this.

After a moment's hesitation, Kurt pulled the key from the ignition and pushed open his car door, stepping lightly down from the driver's seat. _He could do this. _He closed the car door behind him, clicking the lock button on his key once before stuffing it unceremoniously into his pocket. _He could do this_. The walk from his car to the glass doors of the Lima Bean seemed to take both forever and no time at all. He could not imagine time moving any slower, and yet as he reached the doorway, he found himself wishing time had stopped altogether. His heart was beating with unmeasurable speed, and for a moment he wondered if he might die then and there from some sort of stress-induced heart attack. A part of him wished he would; this whole ordeal would be far easier if he were dead. _No. He could do this_. Kurt pulled the glass doors open and stepped inside.

Walking into the coffee shop, Kurt was almost surprised to find it exactly the same as he had last seen it. Some part of him had expected some strange, drastic change to have occurred. It was an unwelcome awakening to realize that, while his life was doing backflips, the rest of the world had continued as it always had. Nothing had so much as shifted despite all the shaking Kurt's world had undergone, and he felt himself feeling foolishly, childishly offended.

Then Kurt caught sight of him, and for a moment his vision cracked. He looked so wrong there, an estranged figure silhouetted against such a familiar background. He sat alone at at a small table, an empty chair occupying the space opposite him. His perfectly erect posture was interrupted only at his neck, which bent slightly. His eyes were fixed on the coffee mug before him, not even a twitch of movement disturbing his waters. He was so still, always still, as though he were trying be make himself invisible, to convince those around him he were nothing more than furniture. Kurt wondered for a moment if he could breathe in all that stillness or if, perhaps, he was drowning.

Kurt could not remember making the conscious decision to walk over toward Blaine, but suddenly there he was. He cleared his throat. Blaine jumped slightly, something Kurt pretended not to notice as Blaine scrambled to his feet, a polite smile transforming his features. Kurt matched the expression, hoping Blaine could not hear the clamorous beating of his heart.

"Hey." Kurt somehow managed to force the word past his lips. It hung between them, thickening the air with a tension Kurt could have cut with a knife. He cleared his throat.

"Should we sit?" Blaine offered, gesturing toward the table and its currently vacant seats.

"Oh. Sure," Kurt agreed, grateful for some way to move the moment forward. He took his seat quickly, stumbling slightly in his haste. He sat perched on the edge of his chair, the tension coiling him like a spring. Blaine lowered himself with more control, settling into the very back of his chair, leaving the maximum distance between himself and Kurt. His coffee sat in the middle of the table, a barrier between them. Blaine caught Kurt noticing it and cleared his throat awkwardly, pulling the mug toward himself.

"I-I hope you don't mind that I ordered without you," he offered quickly.

"Oh, no, no, that's fine," Kurt cut in, his hands flying out in a dismissive wave.

"It's just, you weren't here, and I didn't know what you would want," Blaine trailed off.

"Oh, yeah, of course. It's my fault for being late," he confirmed. "It's fine, really."

Blaine nodded, his responding smile just as unsure as Kurt's own, and silence again overtook the air. Blaine's thumbs drummed against his mug. Kurt wiped the sweat off his palms onto his jeans and wished he had worn something made of a more absorbent material.

"Do you want me to get you something?" Blaine asked suddenly, gesturing with one hand toward the growing line at the register. "I can go order something if you like."

"No, no that's alright." Blaine nodded and after a beat, his attention fell back to his thumbs which resumed their rhythm against the side of the white porcelain mug. Kurt took a deep breath.

"So you're probably wondering-"

"How long have you been in the-"

The two boys began at once, their words becoming muddled with one another, indistinct. Kurt laughed awkwardly, Blaine forced a smile.

"You go first," Kurt offered politely.

"No, no, it's not important, go right ahead." Blaine made a gesture as though he were giving Kurt the floor. Kurt managed an embarrassed laugh, and fearing the silence which threatened to overtake the air once more, opted to speak.

"I was just going to say that, uh, you're probably wondering why, well, why I asked you to come and meet me today," Kurt began. He wished he had taken Blaine up on the offer for coffee. A nice warm nonfat mocha would have given him some place to direct his focus as he spoke. Instead he settled for studying his hands, which he had folded atop his crossed knees. Blaine remained silent. Kurt looked up for a moment, to find Blaine staring intently at the contents of his mug as though it were suddenly the most interesting thing he had ever encountered. Kurt cleared his throat, which seemed to be getting drier by the second, and continued.

"Well, I guess, I uhm," Kurt stuttered. He was usually so articulate. Kurt Hummel always knew what to say. On even his worst days, he could give Santana a run for her money. But he had never been in a situation like this, where his heart settled so heavily in his throat that he thought it might suffocate him. He swallowed hard. "I guess I was wondering...if...you..." he laughed once, trying, and failing, to remove some of the tension in the air. "If you, ah, remember...me."

"What?" Blaine's neck almost broke, his head snapped up so quickly. His voice sounded sharper than he had intended, the word flying from his lips like an arrow, or perhaps a shield. Kurt's question had shattered the tension of the moment into something akin to hope. Hope was a dangerous emotion, and Baine instinctually struggled to repress the feeling the only way he knew how. "Remember you?"

"Uhm, yeah?" Kurt responded, looking physically defeated. Blaine struggled to find the words to respond. The answer was simple. Of course Blaine remembered him. But what was he supposed to say? _Oh, why yes, I remember you. We got the shit beaten out of us on a daily basis by an angry alcoholic deadbeat for about a year and a half after your parents died in some tragic car accident, and then you left me in that house- alone. How's life?_

The thought of bringing it up at all, of admitting out loud any piece of his past sickened him. It made him physically ill. And yet something about the way Kurt kept shooting him nervous glances, the haunch of his shoulders, ignited something in Blaine. He did not want to admit too much, and yet at the same time he could not bring himself to disappoint Kurt.

"I'm not sure," Blaine answered noncommittally. It was a lie, but it was the closest semblance of truth he could muster. "Remember you from where?"

Everything would be easier if Blaine could simply get Kurt to make the admission first. It would take the guessing out of the game and Blaine would know his standing once again. There was no sure footing for him here, not unless Kurt set the foundation.

Something flashed across Kurt's face. The emotion was familiar to Blaine, but the name escaped him. It was gone as quickly as it had come. He rubbed his palms on his pants and dragged himself into a more dignified position.

"Well I guess that's that then," Kurt said, the pleasantry in his voice sounding false. He refused to meet Blaine's eyes, and in the falter in his smile, Blaine found the word. Disappointment. Kurt was disappointed. What could he possibly be disappointed about? Certainly not Blaine's answer. Blaine had risked enough giving away even that much of himself, what more could Kurt want? Kurt had managed to escape the hold of the system, to find a loving family, to make friends and build a life. He had no right to be disappointed that someone he knew eleven years ago may have forgotten his face. He had no reason to hope for remembrance. Kurt had gotten out, what right did he have to hope for more?

Suddenly Blaine was irrationally, inexplicably furious. Kurt had no reason to be forcing smiles at him from across an almost empty coffee table. There was no cause for Kurt to look so defeated. What had he been hoping for? What had he expected? Tears? Some heartwarming reunion straight out of a Nicholas Sparks film? Blaine was certain Kurt knew about his life. He understood how quickly news traveled in towns like Lima. There was no way Kurt could be ignorant to Blaine's situation- that he was still trapped in the system, just as lost and alone and pathetic as ever. He had no right to be sitting across from Blaine, knowing what he undoubtedly knew, looking so wholly deflated.

"What's what then?" Blaine asked, proud of how controlled his tone was. Blaine could be a slave to his fear, to his panic, to his own undying self doubt. But Blaine was the master of his anger. He could be polite and civil and calm, take whatever was coming to him with a smile on his face. His rage could wait until he was in front of a punching bag.

"I came here to find out if you remembered me. You obviously don't, so that's that." Kurt was not as practiced in the art of masked emotions, and his own hurt bled through his words. The pain in his tone only worked to feed Blaine's fire. Suddenly Blaine did not want out. He wanted to hear Kurt say exactly how and where and why they had met.

"I never said that," Blaine answered, letting a soft touch of confusion color his words. "I just asked where you thought you knew me from." _I want to hear you fucking say it, _he thought. For a the first time since he had left the Towning's, Blaine did not want to run or to hide. He wanted to take the mess of his life and shove it down Kurt's throat, simply because Kurt got the chance Blaine never did. Because Kurt got out. Because he left Blaine behind. Blaine wanted Kurt to feel it.

Kurt worried his bottom lip between his teeth, as though he might find the right words somewhere in the texture of his skin.

"You and I," he started, then paused, his eyes flicking down to his fidgeting hands, not sure how to continue. He tried again. "Look, I know you're-" He cut off once more with a deep breath.

"I was a foster kid, too, once, and I don't know if you remember me or not, but we shared a home for about a year when I first went into the system and it was," he paused, took a deep breath, then laughed once, mirthlessly, "Well, to be honest, it was the worst year of my life." Blaine did not respond. He did not move, did not breathe. He was unsure whether he could, even if he wanted to.

"If you don't remember it, that's okay. In fact, it's probably for the best, but I think you do." Kurt nodded once, his face setting into a sort of resolve that made Blaine nervous. "I think you remember, somewhere, and I just- I just realized how much of that you...got me through," Kurt's eyes glanced up, and Blaine struggled to keep his expression neutral.

"In any case, I suppose I just wanted to, well, thank you. For everything," Kurt spoke the last few lines quickly, as though the words might burn him should he hold them on his tongue too long. He laughed, a shaky apprehensive sound, and Blaine noticed the way Kurt's hand trembled as it moved to straighten his collar.

"I'm usually much more articulate than this," he explained, looking at Blaine as though he was waiting for him to speak. Blaine remained silent, he could not find any words. Kurt rubbed the back of his neck.

"You know, I spent a lot of time rehearsing that speech, I could use a little feedback," Kurt joked lamely. Blaine kept his eyes on his coffee, his jaw clenching painfully. He concentrated on relaxing the muscles there.

"Was my delivery off? I've never been good with punchlines. I hear it's all in the timing," Kurt tried once more. When Blaine made no motion to speak, Kurt took a deep breath. When he spoke again, his voice was low and soft. There was a tinge of desperation lining each syllable. "Look, I suppose you don't have to say anything if you don't want to, but I just- I need to know."

Kurt remembered everything. Kurt remembered Blaine, he remembered the house they grew up in. He remembered _Blaine._ That was everything Blaine had ever hoped for. He had stayed up more nights than he would ever admit, even to himself, curled up against his own insomnia, playing this scene over and over in his mind- this recognition. And yet, Blaine had never imagined it would feel like this. He had pictured some sort of comfort, but he felt none of that now. All he could feel at that moment was shame. He wanted to bury his head in his arms and cry; his guilt threatened to drown him. Because Kurt had gotten out. He had managed to get everything Blaine had ever wanted for either of them, and Blaine had dragged him back down. Blaine would have sold his soul an hundred times over for a chance to forget his past, and yet he had forced Kurt to remember. So the way Blaine saw it, he now owed Kurt exactly what he had stolen.

"I remember," he said simply, his voice barely above a whisper. Kurt looked up at him, shock rearranging his features into some sculpture of hope. Then he nodded, and the smallest hint of a smile laced the edges of his eyes. He settled back into his seat, but his eyes never left Blaine's. He seemed to be waiting for Blaine to say something more, or else, perhaps, to get up and bolt out of that room. Blaine wanted nothing more than to do just that. But he owed Kurt now, for dragging him back into this world. The least Blaine could do was stay.

"You know," Kurt said after a moment's silence, when Blaine had made no motion to leave. "I think I'm going to get that coffee."


End file.
